There are a lot of things to consider when doing "upgrades" on old houses (or thinking of buying one to do so).
First: purely electric heating will only make any (economic) sense, if the price of electricity is next to nothing - which is very unlikely to sustain even in the near future.
If you build a house today in Switzerland, it has to conform to the so called "MuKen09" standard (Mustervorschriften der Kantone im ENergiebereich)
This is an consensus of the different cantons reached in 2008 or so and that is in effect now even for the cantons with the longest transition period. It basically describes a certain insulation-level and maximum energy-consumption (in fuel-equivalent).
A house built to this standard is very well insulated and usually comes with an air-water heat-pump.
But you can minimize the overall energy-consumption a bit more: this is the so called Minergie (Minimal Engergie) standard.
The problem with a "normal" MuKEN09-house is that it is basically as airtight as a submarine.
If you renovate a an old house to new standards, the 2nd thing you'll notice (the first being the reduced energy-consumption) is that mold is coming up quickly if you don't open the windows regularly (several times a day for several minutes). In reality, especially during winter, this does not happen.
Those new, underfloor heat-pump heatings are low-temperature. They are not "hot", they are just a bit warmer than room-temperature.
As such, once you open the windows for a few minutes, it takes a while to re-"heat" the room.
For this reason, the Minergie-standard defines that you have to have a
(draft-free) ventilation-system with heat recuperation.
This system constantly exchanges the air in all rooms, but takes the heat in that air to warm-up the incoming air.
As a result, the "climate" in the house is (supposed to be) much better and you still save energy in contrast to just opening windows every other hour.
For a new house, everybody tells you to go Minergie.
Beyond Minergie, there is "Minergie P", which defines a house that takes a certain amount of the energy used to heat from renewable sources.
At current prices, a solar heating does not make any sense - electric energy or natural gasoline is too cheap, the break-even point would be beyond the lifetime of the system.
If the schedule by which nuclear power-plants are shut-down in Germany and here in Switzerland is accelerated, though, energy might become much more expensive quickly and all current calculation would be moot.
http://www.minergie.ch - some material is available in English, but most is in German.
Before you buy and old house, it is recommended to ask for the help of an expert. He can say how much money is needed to bring the house to the level you can afford.
The guy from the Minergie-booth at SVIT recommended this list:
http://www.forumenergie.ch/pub/docs/...gie_110310.pdf
It's really not worth investing (say) 0.75 million Francs for an old building and later learning that you need another .25.
It's probably the easiest to see it as just another investment - and to be a good investor, you have to take the emotions out of the decision making process....
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