And passive solar design of newbuild (or occasionally retrofit) can
be
even better vfm.

The Victorians put a lot more thought into this area of building design
- sometimes. Trouble with this sort of thing is its not a universal
plug in, it requires understadning and design skills to work out how to
do it and when. And today competition on basis of cost is pretty harsh,
and rules out such unnecessary skilled input in nearly all new builds.

The publishing of a set of standard proven designs, along with
checklists for each to see when you can use them, plus payback figures
etc, could change this. But I've not seen such a thing anywhere.

Regrettably solar seems to be the domain of those with insufficient
awareness of real world finances.

The fact is that among the sea of unlikelies, there are some solar
designs that pay back excellantly. It seems only a matter of time
before more widespread awareness occurs - though it doesnt seem to have
got anywhere yet.


NT