"Acrylic stucco and vinyl windows" are a false dichotomy--why not imagine these houses with exterior insulation, lime stucco, and wooden simulated double hung, triple glazed tilt/turn windows?
Another issue is that these houses won't just have to deal with the cold in the future--they'll also have to deal with the heat, something that this article ignores, yet another example of cold climate bias that the green building community is struggling to overcome. You can't deal with the heat by airtightness alone--insulation and glazing has to be part of the solution, and internal glazing inserts aren't going to help as much as external ones because 1) they take up space needed by shades and 2) they have a nasty habit of trapping heat between themselves and the original window, causing damage to the latter.
"He writes about how regulators protecting heritage buildings and districts are responsible for massive carbon emissions."
OK, but that's very few in the grand scheme of things. To say that it's "a very big deal" is simply disingenuous—because whilst the UK has a higher percentage of historical/heritage buildings and districts than most other nations, the absolute number of them is still trivial to the tens or hundreds of millions of other buildings that do NOT fit the heritage designation.
There is the zero-cost major-impact action that should be applied to all buildings - legacy, retrofitted, new - until the buildings are operating solely on green energy and there's a sufficient supply of green energy to preclude any shortage of green energy. GreenBetween 13C-30C/55F-85F, https://greenbetween.home.blog. Don't heat or cool between 13C-30C/55F-85F. Dress warmer or cooler as appropriate. Do it yourself, and tenaciously encourage others to do it.
You can do it. Others have and are. So can you.
Extending the range is admirable, and some do. But at least observe the 13C-30C/55F-85F range. Don't give a free pass for greenhouse emissions from a portion of the range.
Great stuff Lloyd. The nice thing about such dense areas is that they are so well-suited to district heating too (although lack of space in historic areas can make it a challenge).
As someone who lives in a leaky and poorly insulated old house, I'll add that doing so modifies one's
behavior. I don't even try to heat my whole house. I tend to heat one room at a time and I also
wear multiple layers. This doesn't work for everyone, but it is a stategy that was pretty much the norm
untill recently.
"Acrylic stucco and vinyl windows" are a false dichotomy--why not imagine these houses with exterior insulation, lime stucco, and wooden simulated double hung, triple glazed tilt/turn windows?
Another issue is that these houses won't just have to deal with the cold in the future--they'll also have to deal with the heat, something that this article ignores, yet another example of cold climate bias that the green building community is struggling to overcome. You can't deal with the heat by airtightness alone--insulation and glazing has to be part of the solution, and internal glazing inserts aren't going to help as much as external ones because 1) they take up space needed by shades and 2) they have a nasty habit of trapping heat between themselves and the original window, causing damage to the latter.
"He writes about how regulators protecting heritage buildings and districts are responsible for massive carbon emissions."
OK, but that's very few in the grand scheme of things. To say that it's "a very big deal" is simply disingenuous—because whilst the UK has a higher percentage of historical/heritage buildings and districts than most other nations, the absolute number of them is still trivial to the tens or hundreds of millions of other buildings that do NOT fit the heritage designation.
There is the zero-cost major-impact action that should be applied to all buildings - legacy, retrofitted, new - until the buildings are operating solely on green energy and there's a sufficient supply of green energy to preclude any shortage of green energy. GreenBetween 13C-30C/55F-85F, https://greenbetween.home.blog. Don't heat or cool between 13C-30C/55F-85F. Dress warmer or cooler as appropriate. Do it yourself, and tenaciously encourage others to do it.
You can do it. Others have and are. So can you.
Extending the range is admirable, and some do. But at least observe the 13C-30C/55F-85F range. Don't give a free pass for greenhouse emissions from a portion of the range.
Great stuff Lloyd. The nice thing about such dense areas is that they are so well-suited to district heating too (although lack of space in historic areas can make it a challenge).