Sweet home: Aenne model house from Schwörer-Haus already meets the requirements of the KfW for sustainable buildings. In addition, all new buildings, whether wooden or solid, should be well insulated.
Image: Schwörer Haus KG
How does it work efficiently again? Those who want to build can sometimes lose perspective between subsidy chaos, price jungles and insulation boards.
Whoever builds a house needs a good nerve. After all, owning your own property is not only one of the largest single investments of your life for many. There are simply too many tripping hazards between four walls, especially when they present themselves as shells. Because the craftsman doesn’t want to do the same as the site manager or the partner doesn’t like you. Because the ordered building material for the only free electrician’s appointment in the next few months arrives too late or the onset of winter comes too early for the roofer. But what builders have to shoulder on the way to their own home at the moment seems to exceed the usual level. Because everything is increasing: land prices, waiting times for skilled workers, the prices for building materials, interest rates, inflation and, last but not least, the demands that the legislature and the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) place on the most environmentally friendly new buildings.
The promotion
The latter in particular has caused resentment among those wanting to build this year. In a way, KfW fared like many builders: the money was gone faster than you could see. After the first funding freeze, which the Federal Ministry of Economics surprisingly announced in January because the applications far exceeded the bank’s budget, some programs should start again in April. At least for class 40 efficiency houses, which have to meet even stricter requirements than the hitherto popular KfW efficiency house 55, for which there are no longer any repayment grants. In simplified terms, the figures indicate that such a house only requires 40, 55 or 70 percent of the energy that a reference house from the Building Energy Act (GEG) consumes. The lower the number, the less energy residents need to keep their home as warm, cool, light and well-ventilated as they would like to be throughout the year.