Abstract
Private homeowners can save considerable amounts of energy and money, if they retrofit their homes according to up-to-date energy efficiency standards. From an expert point of view, many of these technical measures are profitable in relatively short payback times, if only additional costs are considered. Apparently, many homeowners do not follow this type of rationality and do solely not regard their refurbishment as an investment. Drawing on the results of an empirical survey of retrofit activities among 1,008 homeowners in Germany, it is argued that refurbishments are the outcome of a broader decision which is shaped by an alliance of economic and non-economic motives and goals. Energy-saving measures is expected to lower the burden of operating costs in a perceptible way and secure the value of the house, but they must also correspond to needs like comfort, convenience or belonging in order to be realized.
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Notes
For space reasons, these calculations are not shown, but they can be obtained from the authors on request.
More details can be found (in German) in Stieß et al. 2009a.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Tanja Albrecht, Barbara Birzle-Harder, Jutta Deffner, Elisa Dunkelberg and Victoria van der Land from the research team of the ENEF-Haus project (www.enef-haus.de). We would also like to thank to Christine Rieß from Sociotrend who carried out the multivariate statistical analysis and we are particularly grateful to Georg Sunderer from ISOE for substantial methodological advice and support. We also express our gratitude to the German Ministry of Education and Research for funding the ENEF-Haus project.
Finally, we are indebted to two anonymous referees, who helped us with their critical remarks, and to the editors U. Schrader and J. Thøgersen, for their patient and encouraging suggestions for improving the presentation of our argumentation. Any remaining errors are ours.
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Zundel, S., Stieß, I. Beyond Profitability of Energy-Saving Measures—Attitudes Towards Energy Saving. J Consum Policy 34, 91–105 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-011-9156-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-011-9156-7