You get a grant!, you get a grant!, everybody gets a grant! (Well if you're Danish)

I had a little trouble as to which forum is the right one for this topic but this seems to be the closest.

I have a hot tip: If you own a house in Denmark you can apply for government grants for various energy improvements such as insulation for waterpipes, insulation for your roof, changing your oil furnace to a bio one and many more. You will get the grant as long as you first document the emprovement you want to make and afterwards you have to document the work has been completed.
Two very imortant things:
- You can only apply for each of the grants once. Make sure to make a plan so you remember everything the first time around. You have to get your application approved before any work starts or materials are purchased. If you hired a professional handyman to do the work remember to claim it on your taxreturn so you can getadeduction for the work.
- So far the deadline is dec 31st 2017 (the deadline might be extended as the boligjobordning has but start now to be sure) You just have to get the approval before the deadline and then you have a year to complete the work and send in your documentation and reciepts.
Go to your local fjernvarme selskabs webpage for further information and to apply for the grants.

I applied for the roof insulation grant and have been approved for a return of 1700kr ($270 for the curious). It's not that complicated: I filled out the web form and uploaded a picture.

Since I have your attention: there's this really cool website where you can find topografical (and more) data about your property (the map only covers Danmark) http://data.geus.dk/geusmap/?mapname=denmark&lang=da#zoom=5.564409119588216&lat=6225000&lon=557500&visiblelayers=Topografisk&filter=&layers=&mapname=denmark&filter=&epsg=25832&mode=map&map_imagetype=png&wkt=

I hope it helps

Couldn't resist

Here where we are not as subsidized as Denmark it is not so easy.

Unfortunately the grants for energy are different. Last year I really got robbed by a government grant entity. I was at a farm show and they assured me that we qualified for energy grants, so we applied and went to a meeting. There they took my plans for a unique waterer that kept livestock stock tanks at an ideal temperature by geothermal heat. The woman (an attorney) took photos of my blueprints, gushed about how it would help so many people that had the same problem here in frigid New England, then a week later said that I was qualified for the grant, but that they would not champion it because they were understaffed.

The sad thing is, the bigger farms and wealthy people are the ones who qualify or get the grants, many for only 50% coverage of the project. The silver lining is that it reduces global emissions because fewer people are using fossil fueled appliances, but it shifts the financial burden to the poor. That is because they cannot join the party. The more well to do save money on their utility costs by using wind, geothermal, solar etc, but they could have afforded those products in the beginning, or afforded their utility costs. In contrast, the poor cannot. Because of the way we pay for electrical costs on a per unit consumed basis, our utility costs are still high. It still costs companies a lot to maintain power lines, get new vehicles, pay wages, etc; all of which are going up, not down. That means the governmental boards controlling the rates on these monopolies go up per unit basis, so the poor pay even higher electric rates.

This motivates the wealthy to invest in more energy efficient systems since the return on investment is now less, and thus the cycle continues. We are actually in a death spiral on this. The only way to get off is to go off-grid, but few poor people can afford that either. Land, systems, even custody plays into that. For instance my ex-wife would have my daughter taken from me if we lived in a way that was "unconventional". That would mean what I would save in electricity costs I would pay back in child support payments! So her house (she is well off) gets solar, geothermal, and wind power while I struggle to farm and pay my electrical bill!

But it gets worse for the poor.

Since a lot of these upgrades to the well to do who can afford the 50% match on grants, in the form of higher taxes we help fund our own utility struggle. In other words the poor get hit twice; with higher utility costs, and then higher taxes.

Here in France you can off set things that increase your properties efficiency against your income tax . Which would be great if ever I earned enough to pay income tax

David

I'm sorry to hear about your situation Travis.

I think the scheme I descibed is smaller than the one you write about.
This scheme covers "minor" improvements like insulating your hot water pipes both for drinking and heating water. A couple of pipes had some of the light grey foamy insulation (the first picture). The rats had had a field day gnawing away at it so it was in a pretty pathetic state - sadly the previous tenants of my new house was not let's say caring about the place and the state of it. I'm getting the new stuff from a brand called Rockwool: http://www.rockwool.co.uk/products/rocklap-hv-pipe-sections/ It's easy to install and the last picture show the idea of how it works.

No matter if you get this kind or another I highly recommend insulating. If you can get your hot water where it needs to go with as little heat loss as possible you save bucks because you need to burn less to heat it.
I think the rockets are very, very cool but my house is too big for one of those to work so I have a pellet burning furnace ( and a couple of solar panels that the house came with ) to heat water to run through the radiators. I also bought some electronic thermostats that you can programme to turn the heat up and down. We don't have that wall thermostat thingy you have other countries just the manuel ones with setting 1-5. These ones has the actual temperature so you don't have to guess. I could have gotten a grant for that too but I didn't know about it when I got them. It's these ones: http://radiatorthermostats.danfoss.com/products/living-by-danfoss/living-eco/#/

David Livingston wrote:Here in France you can off set things that increase your properties efficiency against your income tax . Which would be great if ever I earned enough to pay income tax

David

David, as a certified organic farm in France I get a 2,500 euro tax break, as my revenue is below the minimum wage they send me a cheque for 2,500 every year_ which is very well received.

Pete

I've been looking to see if there were any available grants but I've never been able to find any information. We don't have fjernvarme out here where I am and the thisted site doesn't seem to have any info on anything. (and I do not want it it's SO expensive in comparison to wood)  I would very much like to get some new loft insulation, as what is up there at the moment is old carpets and clothes not very cosy! I have to say that hotwater insulation would be a waste of time for us as the shower is only 2meters from the furnace and it has an internal tank, however a new furnace would be wonderful.. as it's from the 80's we think! BTW I am in Denmark I'm up in Thy. And for your amusement when we bought the house the wouldn't give it a energy certificate.. it's so bad! "adequate natural ventilation" is what they said.

Thermostats. HA the way we sort our heating? Put less wood in the fire. It's all very Heath robinson out here! But what does one expect when the 120m house with 1 hectare cost 90k DKK

Oh and that map link is lovely! Not that it tells me anything I didn't already know about my place, but it is great to be nosey and since we are considering moving I will be using it, although I notice the drift geological map is not quite lined up, it has fresh water deposits (from an old lake) half way up the hill here.. oops.