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Comment by twothamendment | Hacker News Reader

The first house I built (designed, generaled and did a lot of the work) was super insulated. Selling it taught me that people just look at square footage and price. They aren't likely to know or care if is built better.

It was eye opening. I got a taste of exactly why builders build crap homes. Building code is the minimum and they build to it for a reason.

We are now friends with the people who bought it and several times they have thanked us for building it well. They didn't know what they were getting, but it is nice to see they appreciate it now - especially when the power is out and neighbors are crying about their cold houses and these lucky people are staying warm.

My third and final build I built for me. I never plan to sell. Even when my kids are gone and I only need half the house it would be very hard to find something to downsize to that would cost me less per month than I pay now. Ground source is that good.

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It is crazy how cheap it is to heat modern houses compared to old ones, and this really ought to be factored into the price! The money you spend on energy is gone forever whereas your down payments go right into your equity, so most people should be happy to pay a lot more for well-insulated square footage.

Do you think this is really an information asymmetry problem? What if there was a standardized way to compare the cost of maintenance per M2?

Maybe it's cultural? We built a house in Ireland and our neighbours freaked out at the idea you could build a house without radiators, or heat a house without burning something (oil, gas, etc). It's been nice and warm (affordably) with just two air source heat pumps.

Interesting. I live in Dublin, we have a terrace house so it's not that large. When we bought it 12 years ago we did a complete renovation (decent insulation, new gas boiler). Since everything works, I don't want to rip everything out and junk it. But I was think about filling the south-facing roof with PV solar and installing two air-source heat pumps. I was hoping to cool the house in summer and heat it from March to October for free. Plus in the sunniest months, divert extra electricity from PV to the hot water tank. But I intended to leave the gas boiler in place as a backup. Maybe I shouldn't. Anyways, if it ever breaks down I'll just have it removed.

Nice! Maybe it's just Offaly.

A standard to compare costs would be ideal. Right now in the US, your best bet is to repeatedly mention energy efficiency in the listing and use a realtor who understands how to market it. Provide monthly bills to show actual usage and use the analytics which most energy companies and smart thermostats provide. Being able to show 50% energy usage compared to average homes in your area helps homebuyers understand the benefits.

There’s a standard in the EU called Building Energy Rating (BER) which is disclosed when a house is sold. It’s a scale that runs from A-G, with A rating being the most energy efficient.

Anecdotally it doesnt seem to have a huge impact on the asking price.

https://www.seai.ie/publications/BER-Homeowner-Leaftlet.pdf

There is a strong correlation between BER and the age of the house. In Denmark the majority of houses are in category D. Almost every house built after 2007 is >D and EVERYTHING that is built after 2011 is A or B, with a large majority in A.

My house is from 1935 and the statistics tell me that it is practically impossible for me to get the house above C. I think that it is theoretically possible but the required investment will be so big that it makes more economic sense to tear the house down and build it with modern materials and techniques.

https://sparenergi.dk/forbruger/vaerktoejer/find-statistik-p...

Is there no equivalent to the Energy Performance Certificate[0] there? It’s not perfect, but it gives you a rough idea of how energy efficient the house is and where improvements should be made (e.g. insulation).

[0] https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/advice/guide-to-energy-perf...

There could be an energy classification system to make it visible to buyers, to have something that uses the same scale to measure all houses so it's possible to compare. For example estimated average heating bill.

In Norway all real estate listings have an "energy classification" as one of the main data points. Example from a random listing I pulled up: https://imgur.com/a/0M9cNad

Of course, most people haven't cared that much about it. But it's changing with higher energy prices. I had a friend regretting buying something with grade F, for same square meters he pays like 10x the amount for heating than I do in my C apartment. (scale from A..G)

Dont forget ventilation

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