Yahoo Finance Energise your assets: how to reduce your holiday home's maintenance costs
Whether for use as a second home or as somewhere to retire, buying a house abroad is a common bucket-list dream. But that dream can quickly turn into a nightmare if buyers find themselves faced with extraordinarily high running costs.
In the popular Umbria region of Italy, Patrick Littlehales runs a company helping expats make their properties more cost-effective: much like our own heritage country houses, Italian farmhouses are not known for their energy efficiency. He has two types of clients: “Those who are working on a building or restoration project, and are interested in doing the right thing in terms of energy systems, or those who are in a sorry state and need rescuing,” he says.
Many of Littlehales’ clients are retirees. “They’ve moved out with a limited pension and suddenly find that their heating or electricity costs are eating up half their capital,” he says. “The worst I’ve had is a couple who were paying €10,000 (£8,700) a year on their energy bills, but €6,000 can be quite common.”
Littlehales spent nine years converting his own property, a four-bedroom farmhouse with 30 acres of land in Perugia, which is now on the market with Knight Frank for €775,000. Through installing more energy-efficient systems, from thermal solar panels to wood burning stoves, he has reduced energy costs to zero. The house now makes a profit of roughly €1,000 a year.
“I was lucky that I did it at the right time, when tariffs on certain solar panels were more favourable,” he says. “Still, with the right systems anyone can reduce their outgoings to about €1,000 a year.”
Johannes Hermel runs an estate agency and property development firm, Casambiente, specialising in sustainable, eco-friendly and energy-efficient homes in Italy. He has seen a rise in the number of people interested in buying these types of properties or converting their own.
“I think for the new generation – and by this I mean younger buyers but also more informed older buyers – it’s not just about reducing energy costs but caring about the environment in which they live,” he says. “My clients are more concerned with the sustainability of building materials and the health of the house: how condensation can create unhealthy moisture in the home, for instance. They’re much more clued up than they used to be.”
Hermel built his own house in Perugia, now on the market for €840,000 through Knight Frank, in 2007. It is made from sustainable timber and its features include a green roof that helps protect the house from overheating.
Hermel can proudly say that his property is the first certified Passivhaus (a home built without the need for conventional heating and cooling methods) in Italy. But, he adds: “It is easier to build a new house like this. When converting an old house, you won’t necessarily be able to get it to Passivhaus standard, but you should still be able to reduce your energy costs by 60 to 70 per cent. You also create a more pleasant environment to live in.”
This was the primary concern of a client of Dara Huang’s, founder of Design Haus Liberty architecture studio. She is currently working on an eco-friendly property by Lago Maggiore in the Lake Como region.
“The entire concept of the house is that it is self-ventilating,” Huang says. “The client is interested in yoga, meditation and wellness, so he didn’t want unnatural ways of heating and cooling the home – aggressive air-conditioning and the like. The house includes a cantilevered glass layer at its centre and we’ve used solar devices for energy.” The construction costs are estimated at €1.2 million.
It is the upfront cost that can put people off. A study by construction company Saint-Gobain found that 84 per cent of home owners would like their property to be more environmentally friendly, but only16 per cent would be willing to pay more for it. Hermel and Littlehales emphasise that the expenditure is worth it; any money spent on conversion, for instance, can be made back through energy savings within six to 10 years at the most.
“Anyway,” adds Hermel, “it’s not just about costs. It’s our responsibility to do something for our children and grandchildren, for the planet, and to try to recuperate some of the energy that we’ve wasted. It’s about having houses that are run by the sun, earth or wind, that look fantastic but don’t need any other energy. This should be the blueprint for all houses.”
