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It's a shame that so much of the developed world just defaults to designs that require heating/cooling. Historically, we did a lot more passive solar -- often f
by DoreenMichele 4y ago
It's a shame that so much of the developed world just defaults to designs that require heating/cooling. Historically, we did a lot more passive solar -- often for the cooling part prior to AC, and then defaulting to wood burning stoves or whatever was standard tech for providing heat in a given era -- and it's a shame we have decided to pursue electricity-eating options rather than upping our game on passive solar design as the world has grown wealthier and more populous.
(Yes, I read the article. Yes, I realize this is temporary for France.)
- Karrot_Kream 4y agoDevelopers will build the cheapest thing they're allowed to by code. While old world low energy homes were fairly custom, we know how to build low energy buildings and homes. The passive house standard [1] discusses repeatable low energy usage homes. The problem is that these designs are expensive. Developers build cheap houses that are only comfortable for use with lots of HVAC usage at low prices. People buy these cheap homes and then use energy to heat and cool. This places pressure on governments to keep energy prices low, which spurs higher consumption, and the cycle continues. It doesn't help that most areas with jobs in the Anglo world are very expensive lots to build new housing. When the lot itself is so expensive, local governments will be loathe to mandate too much by code and make housing even less accessible. If France is better at reigning costs in, they should work on bringing their building codes up to lower energy standards. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house