A young family’s retrofit story

The renovation of a single detached house in Sonderborg from 2015-2018

When Anne og Thor Pallesen took over their new home in the suburban of Sonderborg in 2011, the single detached house called for care and action. It was visible in the kitchen, but also to be sensed by the room temperature.  Thor, the husband explains: ”Initially, we could not stand being on the first floor during the winter season. During the winter, the radiator could not provide sufficient heat and during the summer, we were cooked like lobsters. This is why, we decided to completely re-work the interior design”. Normally a complete renovation can drain all your energy, but the Pallesen family decided to look forward and put their own fingerprint on the interior design, including also bigger children rooms.

 In-door climate, comfort and operational cost

The Pallesen family is a good example of what young families does, when they buy their first home. Focus is the in-door climate, the comfort and lower operational cost. Changing the entire first floor, isolation of floors, a new kitchen, LED lighting and wall isolation from the inside among other initiatives, has impacted the comfort level and the economy.

”We are very happy for any ambitious decisions made during the process. We have invested all in all invested €67.000 in total, out of which €16.000 has been allocated to energy retrofit. We have already saved app. €700 annually in heat and at the same time improved the in-door climate”.

More renovations are already scheduled, next is the utility room.

”Its always been our plan to retrofit the entire house, but we prefer to take it step-by-step – and influence by our own style” says Anne Pallesen.

The family has increased by their new son Jacob, born during the renovation process.

”We like knowing exactly what is being done while we create our own home. We also like knowing that Jacob will be crawling around not freezing at the same time, we see our energy bills going down.”

The renovation of the single detached house in Sonderborg was completed in 2018. The story is a good example of young families implementing the REFURB packages solutions (step-by-step) for deep energy renovations as part of a building renovation project.