Winter-Proofing Your Amsterdam Apartment: The Complete Checklist (2026)
Drafty windows, cold floors, €300 energy bills? A room-by-room checklist: what to DIY, what to book a handyman for, and what to ask your landlord.
Every autumn the same posts appear on Amsterdam forums: "€300 a month for gas and electricity and the place is still cold" — usually from someone in a pre-war building where the heat is clearly leaking out through every gap. Amsterdam's housing stock is beautiful and old, and old means single-brick walls, drafty sash windows, and floors ventilated by design.
The good news: most of the heat you're losing escapes through a handful of fixable weak spots. Preparing an apartment for winter is a weekend of small jobs — some you can do yourself, some worth an afternoon of a professional's time. Here's the full checklist, ordered by impact, with an honest DIY-or-pro verdict on each item.
Do this in September or October. By the first cold week of November, every handyman, boiler engineer and glazier in the city is booked out — and you'll be competing with everyone who waited.
1. Hunt down the drafts (biggest win per euro)
In an uninsulated older home, drafts are the difference between "cozy" and "heating the street." On a windy day, hold the back of your hand (or an incense stick) along window frames, exterior doors, the letterbox, floor edges and any wall vents. Where you feel moving air, heat is leaving.
DIY (an afternoon, €30–€80 in materials):
- Self-adhesive draft strips (tochtstrips) on window and door frames. Choose the right thickness — too thick stops the window closing, too thin does nothing.
- A letterbox brush (brievenbusborstel) and a door-bottom draft excluder — the classic Amsterdam stairwell door leaks astonishing amounts of heat.
- Keyhole covers and socket gaskets on exterior walls, for the completionists.
Book a pro when: the gaps are between the frame and the wall (a mortar or sealant job), the window has dropped on its hinges and no longer closes square, or the draft-strip trick has failed twice. A handyman does proper frame sealing in a couple of hours; this is also the moment to fix that window that never quite latched.
One caution: don't seal ventilation grilles. Amsterdam apartments need controlled airflow to prevent damp and mold. The goal is stopping uncontrolled leaks, not airtightness. If mold is already showing up, read how to prevent mold on Amsterdam walls first.
Renters: draft strips and brushes are yours to install (and cheap enough not to argue over). Rotten frames, broken closers and gaps to the wall are the landlord's responsibility — report them in writing, with photos, in autumn rather than January.
2. Windows: the single-glazing question
Still have single glazing somewhere — the hallway, the bathroom, that one landing window? It loses roughly twice the heat of double glazing and weeps with condensation all winter (hello, black mold on the frames).
DIY stopgap: secondary glazing film (voorzetfolie) shrunk tight with a hairdryer costs a few euros per window and genuinely helps for one season. Thermal curtains, closed at dusk, are the most underrated measure in the city.
Book a pro for: proper secondary glazing panels (voorzetramen) — very effective in monument buildings where you can't replace the sash — or upgrading to HR++ glass in the existing frames, which often needs no permit even in protected cityscapes (check your situation). Owners: glass upgrades qualify for insulation subsidies in many cases, and your VvE may already have a project running — ask before commissioning solo work.
3. Radiators: make the heat you pay for count
Three quick wins behind every radiator:
- Bleed them (ontluchten) — gurgling radiators or cold tops mean trapped air. A €2 key, five minutes per radiator. Tenants: this one is legally yours to do.
- Radiator foil (radiatorfolie) behind radiators on exterior walls reflects heat back into the room instead of warming the brick — worth up to roughly €70 a year in an older home.
- Clear the airflow. A sofa parked against a radiator or a deep windowsill boxing it in can swallow a surprising share of its output.
Book a pro when: whole radiators stay cold after bleeding, some rooms roast while others freeze (the system needs balancing — waterzijdig inregelen), or the boiler pressure keeps dropping. That's the territory of the companion piece: heating and plumbing before the frost.
4. Floors, walls and the "why is it still cold" layer
Pre-war Amsterdam ground floors sit above ventilated crawl spaces; upper floors often have bare plank floors with gaps you can post a letter through.
DIY: thick rugs, draft-strip the skirting gaps, silicone or wood filler in the worst floorboard cracks (leave the crawl-space vents outside alone — they must stay open).
Book a pro for: underfloor insulation from the crawl space (bodem- of vloerisolatie — a one-day professional job that transforms ground-floor apartments), sealing floor perimeters properly, or an assessment of whether cavity wall insulation is possible at all (much of pre-war Amsterdam has no cavity, so don't let anyone sell it to you without checking). Owners: this is subsidy territory (ISDE and municipal schemes) — a contractor who knows the paperwork saves you real money.
5. The outdoor fifteen minutes everyone skips
- Outdoor tap: shut its indoor supply valve and drain it. A frozen garden tap is the most preventable burst pipe in the country.
- Gutters and roof drains: leaves block them in November, then December rain finds its way into the façade. A handyman with a ladder clears gutters in under an hour — far cheaper than fixing water damage.
- Balcony: drainage hole clear? Furniture secured for autumn storms? Planters lifted so they don't stain and freeze to the tiles?
- Ventilation grilles and the mechanical ventilation box: clean the filters — winter is when moisture (and mold) builds indoors.
6. One evening of admin
- Test smoke and CO detectors — carbon monoxide incidents peak in heating season, and detectors are mandatory in Dutch rental homes.
- Find your main water valve (hoofdkraan) and make sure everyone in the household can close it. When a pipe bursts, this is the difference between a puddle and a disaster.
- Check your thermostat's night setback (15–16 °C at night rather than fully off protects against condensation and frozen pipes in cold snaps).
The checklist, sorted by who does what
- Draft strips, letterbox brush, radiator foil, bleeding radiators — DIY
- Window film, thermal curtains — DIY
- Frame sealing, window adjustment, gutter clearing — handyman, 1–3 hours
- Secondary glazing or HR++ glass — specialist, quote per window
- Underfloor or crawl-space insulation — specialist, often subsidized, quote per m²
- Boiler service, radiator balancing, pipe protection — installer, see the heating & plumbing guide
- Rotten frames, structural gaps (renters) — landlord, report in writing
Want the pro column done in one visit? Tom's Klussen does winter-prep visits across Amsterdam: draft sealing, window fixes, gutter clearing and radiator checks in a single appointment, at a price agreed upfront (up to €150 per call-out, first hour included). Get in touch before the November rush.
Frequently asked questions
When should I winter-proof my apartment in the Netherlands?
September or October. Materials are in stock, handymen and boiler engineers still have availability, and you fix problems before the first cold snap exposes them.
What saves the most energy in an old Amsterdam apartment?
Stopping uncontrolled drafts and making radiators effective give the best return per euro. Single-glazing upgrades and floor insulation are the biggest structural wins. In a leaky pre-war flat these measures add up to hundreds of euros a season.
What can my landlord be asked to fix before winter?
Broken or rotten window frames, windows and doors that don't close properly, failing heating, and damp problems. Small measures like draft strips and bleeding radiators are the tenant's own responsibility.
Is it worth hiring a handyman for winter preparation?
For frame sealing, window adjustment and gutter clearing — jobs needing tools, ladders and experience — a 2–3 hour visit typically costs less than one month of the heat it stops wasting, and far less than repairing water damage.