E ON : Most Germans prefer tastefully furnished over energy-efficient homes

If Germans could spend a large sum of money on their home, they would tend to spend it on tasteful furnishings rather than energy conservation. This is the result of a Europe-wide representative survey carried out by E.ON.

In the survey 27 percent of the German respondents said they would prefer to invest in the interior decoration of their home while only 19 percent stated that they would rather give their homes a green makeover. This puts Germans in the middle range for Europe between the Czech Republic, where 39 percent said they preferred a nicely decorated home, and Romania, where only 16 percent want their home to look classy and elegant.

The front runners in terms of investment in energy efficiency are the Hungarians. More than half (51 percent) said they would invest in energy-saving measures, while only 18 percent would rather redecorate their homes. In Italy and Romania, too, there is a preference for energy conservation (37 and 34 percent, respectively). In the UK, the result was both narrow and also unusual because for people in Britain, it's neither energy conservation nor tasteful furnishings that are important. 21 percent said they would much rather have more space and would spend the money on an annex.

Homeowners wanting to save energy without any investment should simply switch to E.ON because E.ON's SmartCheck makes electricity consumption transparent and prevents consumers from running up arrears. It also allows them to compare their consumption with other households and in this way identify additional energy-saving opportunities.

These results are part of the 'Living in Europe' survey, for which E.ON and Kantar EMNID questioned around 8,000 people in Germany, the UK, Italy, the Czech Republic, Romania, Sweden, Turkey and Hungary in December 2016.