By retrofitting their homes to meet stricter energy efficiency standards, private homeowners can reduce home energy use significantly, thus taking a significant step towards achieving a low carbon lifestyle. Although the adoption of low and zero carbon (LZC) technologies can play a key role in achieving significant reductions of CO2 emissions, current practices are rather disappointing. The authors present the results from a standardized empirical survey of 1000 homeowners in Germany that focuses on homeowner maintenance and refurbishment decision-making. A comparison of homeowners applying LZC technologies vs. those carrying out standard refurbishment measures allows us to consider homeowner objectives and barriers to energy-efficient refurbishment and examine the critical role that the dissemination of information and transfer of knowledge play in achieving energy-efficient refurbishment measures.