Hot topic heralds the onset of the cold season

Getting to the Hamburg Consumers' Centre (Hamburg Verbraucherzentrale) is easy, it's right next to the main railway station. Getting access to their information is easy, too - it's just 1.50€ to use the library. But the Centre also employs experts you can access via subject-specific hotlines (1.50€/minute) or you can make an appointment to see someone (for which there is a small charge). You can seek advice on everything from your rights as a consumer to further sources of information about nutrition.

The centre also runs talks and invites experts to answer questions. At this time of the year, keeping warm without increasing your heating bills are hot topics. The small exhibition currently running 'So, old house, how's it going?' ('Na, wie geht's denn altes Haus?') is effectively an advert for another function of the Centre, that of energy adviser.

The display is aimed at home owners who want to 'weatherproof' their home or whose house is developing mould. The first panel follows Mr and Mrs Specht from bagging a bargain house to finding that at the end of their first year, their heating bill is a fifth larger (800€) than they had expected. So, they called in the services of an energy expert from the Consumer Centre.

The energy expert has now become an 'energy detective' and the subsequent panels show what comes under that person's microscope and the information the environmental gumshoe needs to be able to advise a homeowner on how to remedy the problem in a bid to cut heating costs, stop mould developing and, as a bonus, reduce their impact on the environment.

The focus switches to a before and after scenario, presumably of a genuinue case history, albeit of a small block of flats rather than the travails of a couple in an old, rundown detached house.

Three values were compared:

a) energy use in kWh

b) CO2 emissions in kg

c) fuel costs.

The benefits were clear - the savings were over 75% in each case.

As with the 'Haus Spart Energie - Gewusst wie' display, the people who put this together have realised that the way to get home owners' attention is to show them that they can save money. And, again, the messages are that installing or improving the insulation is the answer and there is a solution for every type of dwelling.

The exhibition is open between 10am and 6pm.