Erica Meijerink of Energiebank Rotterdam recalled a home visit where the heating was set to 25 degrees, the windows were wide open and a family was wearing shorts. The family did not know what was going wrong, she said.

Meijerink said this lack of knowledge was common among the households she worked with, including highly educated people. She said people often assumed that everyone knew how to use heating efficiently, but that this was not the case.