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I think what this person meant is the renewable enthusiasts treat insulation as something easily done whereas it will take 100 years to insulate the majority of

I think what this person meant is the renewable enthusiasts treat insulation as something easily done whereas it will take 100 years to insulate the majority of houses in Europe in my view…

lrem 4y ago
Much of eastern Europe, so not particularly rich or well run countries, went from zero (due to cheap Russian gas in Warsaw pact) to ~everything insulated (because trying to cut dependency on a mortal enemy) in less than two decades.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  I'm from Moldova. No, they didn't go to "everything is insulated" even in the wildest dreams.
  - beebeepka 4y ago
    The EU paid for lots of insulation here in Bulgaria. Mostly blocks of flats, of course. They were ugly and really needed it. Hope you guys enter the union soon
dmitriid 4y ago
Thank you. I couldn't have phrased it this well
yayachiken 4y ago
I know you are just illustrating an opinion and not meaning it literally, but I want to stress how ridiculous your number of 100 years is in reality. The expected economic lifetime of a building in Germany is approximately 100 years. Which means that on average, the house will be torn down and rebuilt after at most 100 years, because additional upkeep would not make economic sense. This means that if you do not change policy except mandating modern standards for new buildings (which is already done) and do literally jack-shit, the normal economic activity will have the problem sorted out in that timespan. For reference: Of 22 million buildings in Germany, "only" 12.5 million are built before 1977. The German government aims at having pretty much all buildings energetically renovated in 2050. The biggest problem is that 1. there are many house-owners who literally do not give a shit even if they can save lots of money by an investment. Not everyone is economically minded and there is no political will (or legal basis) to force these people for their own good. And 2. for bigger apartment buildings etc. it is hard to do an invasive renovation while the units are occupied, limiting the scope of renovations to something that can be done in-place or one unit at a time or without affecting tenants.
- illiac786 4y ago
  >The expected economic lifetime of a building in Germany is approximately 100 years Source? Counter examples: my house is built 1908. Lots of other houses built around the same time in the area I live in. My parents live in a house from 1749. The entire village where they live is made of houses built 200+ years ago, it's written on the house in general, hence easy to check. Hence I very much stand by my prediction it will take 100 years to isolate the vast majority of houses in Europe. Of course it's just a prediction based on my observations, I'm not an expert in the area.
  - thomashop 4y ago
    The person you responded to was talking about the whole of Germany. You're talking about one individual village. Your sample size is too small to make generalisations.
    - illiac786 4y ago
      What sample over whole Germany? There is no source, no sample, it’s a baseless statement.
  - bogdanu 4y ago
    Europe is a big continent, even EU is so diverse. A lot of people in Eastern Europe live in apartments and houses that can be insulated extremely cheap. There are even EU or government programs that make it affordable.
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      It's not really "extremely cheap" and probably only refers to covering old buildings with external insulation. Most of the Soviet-era panel apartment blocks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel_building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel_building) have extremely shitty internal insulation, too. So you end up heating your neighbors, the street, the elevator shafts, stairwells etc. You can't really fix that without extremely costly renovations. Khrusschchyovkas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka) are marginally better due to materials used, but they are 50 years past their demolition date by now, and will be also very expensive to retrofit. There is also an insane number of new construction in the past 30 years. Perhaps for the in-EU Eastern European countries regulations and standards work. Everywhere else it's "whatever we build, as cheaply as possible"
midasuni 4y ago
You can usually improve insulation by popping down to the local DIY store and buying some rolls for your loft making a big difference. Of course you can only do that once. And if you’re a landlord why would you pay your money to insulate when you wont save any money as your tenants are the ones paying the bills.
- AnonymousPlanet 4y ago
  Have you ever heard of mould? Moisture in the walls? Caused by shifting dew points. Your "just pop down to the hardware store" DIY insulation will do a lot of damage.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  In some countries, you can't rent out homes that fall below a certain standard for insulation, and the efficiency is rated as part of every property sale, which internalises the cost savings and makes it worthwile.
goodpoint 4y ago
> it will take 100 years to insulate the majority of houses in Europe Citation needed. This number is absurd.
- illiac786 4y ago
  No one can reliably predict this, this is my opinion simply. I thought that was clear.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  500 million people. So, around 200 million or so households. Each household (even if it's an apartment) needs both external and internal insulation improved. Same goes for things like stores, factories, schools, government buildings, and all other non-residential buildings. Most buildings are built before new energy standards (https://ec.europa.eu/energy/eu-buildings-factsheets_en https://ec.europa.eu/energy/eu-buildings-factsheets_en). In some countries (esp. the Eadtern block) you probably need to teardown old buildings because you can't just simply insulate them (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32202169 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32202169) I'd say "100 years" is a conservative estimation
  - goodpoint 4y ago
    Except the large majority of buildings are not going to last anywhere close to 100 years, and they will be very likely be replaced with better buildings long before that. And most of the buildings that instead have a lifespan beyond 2122 are historical buildings built with very thick walls and they don't need insulation work beyond replacing windows. There are many statistics on building lifecycle that you can easily find on the Internet. So such estimation is really not grounded in reality.
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      > Except the large majority of buildings are not going to last anywhere close to 100 years, and they will be very likely be replaced with better buildings long before that. We need a quote on that. And no, "bulidings last on average 100 years without doing anything to them" is not it. "Replaced with better buildings" inevitably means "displacing large swaths of population". Because you can't just wave a magic wand and replace houses. For the past 4 years I've lived in a district built in th 60s. So, 60 years ago. If you're telling me that those dozens of building with hundreds of people living in them will be just up and replaced, you're delusional.

I think what this person meant is the renewable enthusiasts treat insulation as something easily done whereas it will take 100 years to insulate the majority of houses in Europe in my view…

lrem 4y ago

Much of eastern Europe, so not particularly rich or well run countries, went from zero (due to cheap Russian gas in Warsaw pact) to ~everything insulated (because trying to cut dependency on a mortal enemy) in less than two decades.

dmitriid 4y ago
I'm from Moldova. No, they didn't go to "everything is insulated" even in the wildest dreams.
- beebeepka 4y ago
  The EU paid for lots of insulation here in Bulgaria. Mostly blocks of flats, of course. They were ugly and really needed it. Hope you guys enter the union soon

dmitriid 4y ago

Thank you. I couldn't have phrased it this well

yayachiken 4y ago

I know you are just illustrating an opinion and not meaning it literally, but I want to stress how ridiculous your number of 100 years is in reality. The expected economic lifetime of a building in Germany is approximately 100 years. Which means that on average, the house will be torn down and rebuilt after at most 100 years, because additional upkeep would not make economic sense. This means that if you do not change policy except mandating modern standards for new buildings (which is already done) and do literally jack-shit, the normal economic activity will have the problem sorted out in that timespan. For reference: Of 22 million buildings in Germany, "only" 12.5 million are built before 1977. The German government aims at having pretty much all buildings energetically renovated in 2050. The biggest problem is that 1. there are many house-owners who literally do not give a shit even if they can save lots of money by an investment. Not everyone is economically minded and there is no political will (or legal basis) to force these people for their own good. And 2. for bigger apartment buildings etc. it is hard to do an invasive renovation while the units are occupied, limiting the scope of renovations to something that can be done in-place or one unit at a time or without affecting tenants.

illiac786 4y ago
>The expected economic lifetime of a building in Germany is approximately 100 years Source? Counter examples: my house is built 1908. Lots of other houses built around the same time in the area I live in. My parents live in a house from 1749. The entire village where they live is made of houses built 200+ years ago, it's written on the house in general, hence easy to check. Hence I very much stand by my prediction it will take 100 years to isolate the vast majority of houses in Europe. Of course it's just a prediction based on my observations, I'm not an expert in the area.
- thomashop 4y ago
  The person you responded to was talking about the whole of Germany. You're talking about one individual village. Your sample size is too small to make generalisations.
  - illiac786 4y ago
    What sample over whole Germany? There is no source, no sample, it’s a baseless statement.
- bogdanu 4y ago
  Europe is a big continent, even EU is so diverse. A lot of people in Eastern Europe live in apartments and houses that can be insulated extremely cheap. There are even EU or government programs that make it affordable.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    It's not really "extremely cheap" and probably only refers to covering old buildings with external insulation. Most of the Soviet-era panel apartment blocks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel_building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel_building) have extremely shitty internal insulation, too. So you end up heating your neighbors, the street, the elevator shafts, stairwells etc. You can't really fix that without extremely costly renovations. Khrusschchyovkas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka) are marginally better due to materials used, but they are 50 years past their demolition date by now, and will be also very expensive to retrofit. There is also an insane number of new construction in the past 30 years. Perhaps for the in-EU Eastern European countries regulations and standards work. Everywhere else it's "whatever we build, as cheaply as possible"

midasuni 4y ago

You can usually improve insulation by popping down to the local DIY store and buying some rolls for your loft making a big difference. Of course you can only do that once. And if you’re a landlord why would you pay your money to insulate when you wont save any money as your tenants are the ones paying the bills.

AnonymousPlanet 4y ago
Have you ever heard of mould? Moisture in the walls? Caused by shifting dew points. Your "just pop down to the hardware store" DIY insulation will do a lot of damage.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
In some countries, you can't rent out homes that fall below a certain standard for insulation, and the efficiency is rated as part of every property sale, which internalises the cost savings and makes it worthwile.

goodpoint 4y ago

> it will take 100 years to insulate the majority of houses in Europe Citation needed. This number is absurd.

illiac786 4y ago
No one can reliably predict this, this is my opinion simply. I thought that was clear.
dmitriid 4y ago
500 million people. So, around 200 million or so households. Each household (even if it's an apartment) needs both external and internal insulation improved. Same goes for things like stores, factories, schools, government buildings, and all other non-residential buildings. Most buildings are built before new energy standards (https://ec.europa.eu/energy/eu-buildings-factsheets_en https://ec.europa.eu/energy/eu-buildings-factsheets_en). In some countries (esp. the Eadtern block) you probably need to teardown old buildings because you can't just simply insulate them (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32202169 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32202169) I'd say "100 years" is a conservative estimation
- goodpoint 4y ago
  Except the large majority of buildings are not going to last anywhere close to 100 years, and they will be very likely be replaced with better buildings long before that. And most of the buildings that instead have a lifespan beyond 2122 are historical buildings built with very thick walls and they don't need insulation work beyond replacing windows. There are many statistics on building lifecycle that you can easily find on the Internet. So such estimation is really not grounded in reality.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > Except the large majority of buildings are not going to last anywhere close to 100 years, and they will be very likely be replaced with better buildings long before that. We need a quote on that. And no, "bulidings last on average 100 years without doing anything to them" is not it. "Replaced with better buildings" inevitably means "displacing large swaths of population". Because you can't just wave a magic wand and replace houses. For the past 4 years I've lived in a district built in th 60s. So, 60 years ago. If you're telling me that those dozens of building with hundreds of people living in them will be just up and replaced, you're delusional.