Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

Concrete cistern is absolutely top-notch. I have 8000 liters and can always water plants and vegetables with it in summer. Nothing leaks. Financially, of course, it takes time to pay off, I think about 30 years. Whatever.

Photovoltaics are definitely more interesting in terms of return, pay off after 10 years and last 20 to 30 years.

The choice is respected, but also massively overrated. A district administrator in a small town in Thuringia is now from the AfD, which doesn't really change much at the state or federal level.

And the crest doesn’t need to swell either. Because that’s always easy to say. Of course: We are better off than 95% of the people on this planet and certainly better off than 75% of the people in Germany.

But what exactly do you do to help the poor people who are flocking to us? Paying taxes is not enough to have a big mouth. Refugee aid depends on volunteer work. Would you be willing to take in refugee policy at your own home? If you ask something like that directly, the do-gooders usually falter. Because there are plants and an ironing board in the guest room, no one can sleep there.

We cannot take in everyone who thinks they are doing badly in the world around us. Unfortunately, that’s just the way it is.

And I bet you wouldn’t send your children to a school where 70% of the kids are refugees either. That’s common. Do-gooders want to take in every refugee, every African, every Nepali. But please not with themselves, but preferably at the neighbor’s... or rather in the neighboring town, they have a nice meadow there, you can put containers there... etc.

"The African," by the way, has children because he must. In these countries, there is no pension, no health insurance, no elder care. The children take care of their parents, provide for them in old age. People who spout such rubbish like "Well, the xxxxd should just have less sex" should be put in a time capsule and sent back to the 16th century. It looked similar in Germany back then...

But what exactly do you do to help the poor people flocking to us?

Why are you asking me this question? I don't want to help these people at all. I don't care either, because we have enough problems in our own country.

About cisterns again: Whether they are worthwhile or not, you no longer need to calculate in 90% of cases - they are in the development plan and that ends the discussion...

Again: A cistern is something completely different from a soakaway and neither can replace the other – that’s exactly why they are combined: The cistern can ONLY store (and very limitedly at that) and cannot infiltrate anything, and the soakaway cannot store anything and can ONLY infiltrate (and unlimitedly as long as it is not sealed). I need a soakaway anyway because no cistern in the world can last the entire year without overflow. If I want, I can buffer or temporarily store the soakaway inflow with a cistern. Neither of the two is in any way an alternative to the other. The only thing that is technically an alternative to each other is "infiltration" vs. "channel discharge." Since the latter is prohibited here, I have to build infiltration. If I want, I can combine it with a cistern.

And if you think purely economically, the cistern will not be worthwhile.

1. As with the topic of photovoltaics: There is life outside of Excel. It simply gives me joy to be able to water my garden with rainwater and not have to use drinking water for it – even though we absolutely have NO drinking water scarcity here in the district and saving drinking water at my place can protect my wallet but cannot change the drinking water scarcity in Brandenburg. Different people, different goals, different solutions.
2. The payback calculation depends extremely on whether you are looking at retrofitting or new construction. If I retrofit a cistern in my existing house, I have double the cost compared to my new build but only 1/3 of the yield because I can only feed a fraction of the roof area. And in new buildings, I regularly see people who spend weeks choosing the best steam cooker and the best extractor hood and put huge amounts of money into that – but for the infrastructure there is neither thinking time nor money left.
3. There are municipalities that heavily subsidize everything that buffers temperatures/water/electricity. A green garage roof certainly gives me even less return than a cistern, yet I will do it and the municipality contributes. My cistern pays off financially after 15-20 years – in terms of joy of life it has already paid off now.