Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

Was the skilled labor shortage already so big in 2018?

I think what currently leads to significant costs in some federal states are the authorities and the long processing times of applications. Many builders conclude contracts for work and financing before the building application is submitted. If the building application now takes 10-12 months, the commitment interest and the expiration of the price lock come into effect immediately. That can cost several tens of thousands of euros.

Regardless of the fact that I also consider the processing times outrageous, the financing problem can be circumvented by splitting off the planning service including the building application and only concluding the commissioning of the construction and the financing after obtaining the approval. Or am I mistaken here?

The scenario is desirable, but unfortunately unrealistic. It's like recommending that everyone should switch from cars to bicycles. Insulating the building envelope also sounds very good at first. However, metropolitan areas like Hamburg, with its 80% listed buildings, have a huge problem.

I live in a listed building or in the old town area. The issue with listed buildings is more of a financial problem and a question of the standard to be achieved.

But there is the KFW monument subsidy before doing nothing. The tax advantage compared to non-listed building owners is also taken along. It can also be well argued since higher investments are involved.

I don't understand why one simply doesn't define a uniform data exchange format with which the relevant operating data of the heating system is recorded and optimized using AI. Some portal where I enter my desired operating conditions and which provides me the information on what and how I have to set (or even does it automatically). That would be a nice project for Fraunhofer & Co.

A heating system simply has to be individually adjusted to the user(s). For one person, 20°C is enough, another only feels comfortable at 23°C. If you now have 100 tenants in the building, you have to set the system for the worst-case user. It would already help a lot to replace the old, 15-20 year old systems with new ones. It's like with refrigerators. The new ones are much more efficient and require a fraction of the energy...

Roughly speaking, I would say: either convert to underfloor heating, insulate the house, or use geothermal energy (instead of air). In a completely unrenovated old building with radiators, using an air-water heat pump can otherwise be difficult or more expensive than oil/gas. Of course, the individual points can also be combined. In fact, points one and two should be considered independently of the heating system. You should do that anyway. And if someone hasn't done anything to their house in the last 20 years, they shouldn't blame the heat pump for that now. Energy renovations have been heavily subsidized for a long time.

I would also add pellets and wood log gasifiers. Combined with a rather problematic insulation situation (e.g., a listed building), in my opinion, this is a good compromise solution.

It's not much better for the climate balance than oil and gas. By the time it has regrown, climate change won’t be an issue anymore. Either way. That means sooner or later there will be a CO2 price tag on it. Then you have much stronger emissions problems, still need a chimney and a chimney sweep, as well as wood from overexploitation (no, the waste from somewhere hasn't been enough for 20 years). And when I look around here, pellet users will soon face quite severe price increases because a lot of uninformed people in their mid-fifties are switching to pellets right now. Ah, and of course the heating system is damn expensive or constantly broken. So no. I don’t consider it an alternative.

And here they are again - the objections about old buildings, monument protection, etc. Until those are clarified, we could devote ourselves to what is easily and quickly doable. There are really enough low-hanging fruits. For example, in this (new)CONSTRUCTION forum, people are still rambling about gas as a great option. Deregulate photovoltaics and put them on every public building, tenant electricity, and so on and so forth.

After refreshing our school knowledge about exponential growth during the pandemic, maybe it's time for the Pareto principle now?