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Germany has engaged better-off homeowners in advanced thermal retrofits to high standards. However, at this level retrofits are inherently economically inefficient, and empirical research shows they often bring significantly smaller savings than calculated. This ‘top-end’ approach also fails to engage the bulk of homeowners, due to severe technical and economic difficulties of retrofitting to the required level. In order to increase the annual retrofit rate and energy savings, we propose a broadening out of policy into three distinct streams, simultaneously promoting: cost-effective thermal upgrade measures, which would not necessarily meet current, stringent EnEV standards; user behavior change, which appears to have a very large saving potential that is already beginning to be realized; and top-end thermal retrofits which may not be economically viable but could be promoted for their environmental and …