{"id":274809,"date":"2026-02-01T04:09:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T04:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/274809\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T04:09:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T04:09:22","slug":"first-time-wicklow-homeowner-shares-retrofit-story-our-first-winter-we-went-through-three-tanks-of-oil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/274809\/","title":{"rendered":"First-time Wicklow homeowner shares retrofit story &#8211; \u2018Our first winter, we went through three tanks of oil\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Didi De Zwarte working on her 1950s Arklow home with partner Renato.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6862026c-3405-4c8b-893d-21f71a87b74b.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Didi De Zwarte working on her 1950s Arklow home with partner Renato.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">A first-time Wicklow homeowner has shown what can be achieved on a tight budget with elbow grease and some community collaboration, after a local insulation initiative helped transform her 1950s home from an F-rated icebox into a cosy B3 abode, slashing her winter heating bills by two-thirds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Born in the Netherlands, but spending her formative years in the Garden County, experienced dietitian Didi De Zwarte moved back from Dublin to her adopted hometown of Arklow in 2020 to be closer to her family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Didi De Zwarte working on her 1950s Arklow home with partner Renato. A first-time Wicklow homeowner has shown&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,5718,61,60],"class_list":["post-274809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-eoin-mac-raghnaill","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}