We are not saving any money yet, but we are renovating our home. We wanted to move but have found out we've been priced out of the market. We could increase our mortgage by €250.000 and we would just about be able to afford the same house as our current one on a different street.
Since I have a disability and Mr. Imma has two left hands, we are looking at oursourcing most of it. The bank has offered to increase our mortgage by €100.000 (at 0,88%) which would give us a LTV of around 60%. So we have lots of money available that we certainly won't all spend, and we're trying to spend the largest chunk of our budget on increasing the energy-efficiency of our home by insulating the roof, the floor and installing a grey water system.
We are working with suppliers, they're sending in quotes and I'm driving them crazy with all my detailed questions and all my caring about stupid details like how much energy appliances use etc. On purpose, we've not discussed the whole budget with any of the companies we're dealing with, but somehow they've been getting the impression we've got money to burn and they're sneaking in all sorts of expensive stuff that we didn't discuss.
One kitchen sales guy ranted to us that it didn't matter at all that the fridge he offers uses twice as much energy as our current one because a fridge is not the main electricity slurping appliance in the home. If we care that much about the environment we should get rid of old freezer in the garage, the dryer, we shouldn't use an old vacuum cleaner every day, we shouldn't focus on a fridge. Well sir, we don't have any of those things, because indeed they would consume even more electricity than this fridge. But in our home, the fridge is the appliance that uses the most energy. He looked shocked when we said that. We then left.
All in all I'm kind of disappointed that any kind of appliance that has so far been offered in a quote from a builder has been less energy efficient than what's on offer in a regular home goods store. Apparantly no one calls them out on it. I think they buy the slightly older models on the cheap and build them into homes of unsuspecting customers who only care about the colour of the tiles and cupboards. The appliance they offered us for our kitchen is also 3 dB louder than the current one. I was told that's "almost the same". In reality every 3 dB increase means a sound is doubled. We live in a small home and we have an open kitchen, so a loud fridge would really be an issue.
We are only just starting on this journey and I'm tired of it already, but we have to do it. Our home has not been renovated since 1980. Everything is old and worn-out and very little is salvageable. Funny enough the authentic 1940s elements are all still in good condition. It's very clear that the materials they used in the 40s were way better quality than those used in the 80s.