Barriers for Energy Renovation of Danish Single-Family Houses and Suggested Solutions to Overcome These

As much as 40% of the total energy consumption in Denmark is utilized by the building sector and most of this energy is used for heating. Political initiatives have been taken to reduce this amount considerably but for this to happen, the energy consumption of the existing residential housing stock must be reduced dramatically. The greatest saving potential is found among the approximately 440.000 standardised single-family houses which were constructed in the 1960’s and 1970’s. It is found that barriers preventing the implementation of this great potential are present in various forms among all groups of professionals and homeowners. With barriers ranging from lack of knowledge, interest, examples and technology to economic and aesthetic uncertainty the situation is not easily reversed. This paper presents the results from a literature study of the barriers for energy renovations in private households found in Denmark and argues that different solutions approaches must be introduced and implemented simultaneously to affect the participants and offer them clear advantages by participating in future energy renovations to change the situation and to achieve the pursued reduction in energy consumption.