I'm surprised to see that basic things like heatpumps and insulation are apparently still controversial in 2024. By law, houses in my neck of the woods are req

I'm surprised to see that basic things like heatpumps and insulation are apparently still controversial in 2024. By law, houses in my neck of the woods are required to be well insulated, where the definition gets stricter every couple of years. Newly built houses have to be compliant. When renovating existing houses, efforts towards compliance have to be made up to a certain level. Every house that's sold or rented must advertise its energy consumption expressed in kW/m², and you can be damned sure that high energy loss results in severe impact on sales price. Any kind of heater obviously has less work to do when heat loss is minimized by good insulation. Good options have been available for literally decades for most types of buildings. The roof is typically the easiest, with many options. E.g. on the inside between the rafters. Or you can remove the tiles, insulate on the outside, add framing and retile. My roofer simply tore out the ancient roofing, slapped on some insulation, and finished things with EPDM. Easy peasy. Floors can be tricky depending on the house and how much effort you're willing to put in. Easy if you have a crawlspace or basement, not so easy if not. I tore up and dug out the floors in my 100+ year old house and added 10cm of PIR insulation. This was not much fun, but after a hundred years the floor looked like shit anyway. Walls have lots of options. Cavity walls can be filled with insulation by drilling a couple of holes and blowing it in. I insulated my brick walls on the outside, 12cm of XPS, with a layer of reinforcement, and finished with silicone plaster rendering. Don't forget about the windows. Old windows are very leaky. Not just the glazing (double or triple for the win), but the framing is equally important. Also great for keeping out noise. And then there's ventilation. I installed a forced air ventilation system with heat and moisture recovery. This had a bigger impact than expected, the indoor air is much nicer, and I don't lose any heat by having to open windows in the winter. In all cases, of course, moisture has to be taken into account. You may or may not need a moisture barrier, some parts may have to be breathable, etc. Over here, subsidies are available for most of these improvements, and our energy prices are high enough to make it worth the effort. I pay under 200eur/year (not a typo) for heating, and most of that goes towards hot showers.