Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

(...)
So far, the focus has mostly been on new construction when it comes to making a building energetically efficient.

Mostly? However, new builds have now reached levels where "energetically efficient" and "economically sensible" are drifting far apart. Even if owners like to convince themselves otherwise, a KfW40+ house will never pay for itself through energy savings. The Pareto principle also applies here, where the 80% with the greatest leverage is represented by the existing building stock. In new construction, a good standard was already achieved in 2012, which did not need to be tightened further.

Even if the owners like to convince themselves otherwise, a KfW40+ house will never pay off through energy savings.

I don't think the owners are convincing themselves of that, because the focus is not on economic efficiency when deciding on KfW40+.

I don't think the owners are convincing themselves of that, because the focus is not on economic efficiency when deciding on KfW40+.

That's right... It used to be the repayment grant and now it's the interest rate per housing unit that you can get...

Meanwhile, the EH55 is also mandatory. With honest accounting, the additional effort for an EH40 building envelope is very manageable. It is basically just the thicker bricks, and they don't cost more than 20k.

It would have been really interesting if EH40 had become mandatory.

And if you build without stones, but with wood, then the step to a passive house is not far either. But somehow you don't read anything about the product anymore. But there seem to be many of these "steps" in construction, and at the moment it's not progressing very well when you have to finance the money expensively.

It would have been really interesting if EH40 had become mandatory. And if you build not with stones but with wood, then the step to the passive house is not far either. But somehow you don’t read anything about the product anymore. But there seem to be many of these "steps" in construction, and currently, progress is not going so well when you have to finance the money expensively.

A passive house corresponds essentially to the current KfW40 house. There are only marginal differences - including in the total energy consumption (including requirements for household electricity, which must be met in the passive house). And of course also the official certification (which of course costs a lot of money again). Therefore, it no longer makes sense to build or designate formal passive houses if you build an almost identical house with KfW 40, which is cheaper.