The parameters widely differ between country and city: In the country, you usually have space (but lack money), in the city, you lack space but can often work with a pretty good income (= build a new, energy optimized house).
Every house is different. If I build a new house today, of course this would look different.
It is cold as f in this place all winter. It's also hot as f in these new 37 degree summers.
So the question is, is the problem the old homes, or our insistence to live in inefficient buildings in places with poor climates?
Of course in this country, there's more demand for housing than can be met, so living someplace modern (efficient/comfortable) is not necessarily an option based on price. So the next choice is relocating to a different country which has a more livable climate.
I love architectural history, but we would all be better off if modern engineering and design decisions were made on new structures to replace the grossly inefficient current ones.
What I’m trying to say is that this is about incentives, not about how old things are. The modern building let their tenants cover the AC cost while the old one had water heating instead included.
Also, there's a new government initiative to provide incentives and special financing for property owners (who rent their property) to bring the efficiency of all properties up to a decent minimum level by 2030 if they wish to be allowed to continue renting them out. I imagine there may be some exclusions for certain very old properties, especially historical/monumental ones. But regardless, it should have a big positive impact.
The stories sound like comedy: entire block of flats was built the wrong way round, someone moved into theyr flat and found the balcony was missing - the balcony door just led to a 30 meter drop. They forgot to lay cable down for internet, so a new block only has 8 megabit ADSL. The building I am in, they made the holes for fire sprinkles in the wrong place - so there is a hole in the ceiling, but nothing behind it. The sprinkler is 20 cm away from it, inside the ceiling, and if something goes wrong it won't actually be able to pop out
How big is the house?
.. and this was quite thoroughly calculated. I can tear down the house and build a new one, but apart from the waste of resources - building a new one will also cost minimum €200k - so I thought, why not 'oversize' PV, if it only costs €100k and can heat the house without improving on insulation?
To emphasize, this conclusion will likely not apply to the majority of people (especially here on HN) because as many have said here, parameters and contexts differ widely.
I'd have guessed that 200k to rip it down & build a new house that has great insulation - or even to just retrofit insulation and other upgrades to the existing building - would be expected to last longer before costing the same amount against to replace (and/or pricey maintenance/insurance of the more expensive PV, aircon etc.). And might therefore work out cheaper when looked at as a 50 year question rather than 1 year one?
I don't presume to know more than you, not only don't I know about your specific situation I also know very little about these subjects generally, I'm just curious.
