Light bulbs are just the beginning.

[d000hg]

Personally i can't stand those hermetically sealed eco boxes. Hot and stuffy & I'm convinced they are bad for one's health.

Can't be worse than an air-conditioned office. I don't like the idea of a sealed house either but purely since I think it would be less comfortable.

[wurzel]

Can't be worse than an air-conditioned office. I don't like the idea of a sealed house either but purely since I think it would be less comfortable.

I like my draughts. In winter if I want to get warm I sit in front of the log fire. When I get too hot I just move my chair a few feet & there's a nice cooling draught. Being an old house, it also has thick walls which keeps it cool & refreshing on the rare occassions the the weather is uncomfortably warm. I sometimes find it unbearable just visiting people in new houses even for a few hours. Especially when the heating is on.

[BlasterBates]

Try visiting Scandinavia or America and let us know. Wood is the most amazing building material. Unlike AGW where the answers are unclear, you're really showing your ignorance here because there's nothing 'eco' about building from wood.

I was referring to the fact that it is underheated. In an underheated house it gets damp.You get mould, and of course if it's wooden and not well ventilated, the wood will rot as well.

In Scandanavia you will find they have stonking great wood fires, saunas and the rest of it.

[EternalOptimist]

I would live in a timber cave, but only if it were made out of bricks and mortar.

I used to like the greenies, when they were making a statement about sacrifices they were prepared to make in the name of their world view.
When did all that niceness turn into eco-facsism ? i missed that

[Sysman]

In many countries wooden houses are quite the norm.

Like Scandinavia.

Where it gets cold in winter.

They did have double glazing long before it became the norm in the UK, and there's a fair bit of hydroelectric power there too.

And oil of course.

[BlasterBates]

Good the point wasn't against wooden houses I'm well aware that there are plenty of excellent wooden houses I've stayed in a lot of them. The point was the Zero-Carbon classroom was a complete disaster, and I just pointed out because the place was underheated it would probably be damp, they usually are, and I put in a comment about the wood rotting, which it does if it's damp and not well ventilated. Now we're in a ridiculous debate about whether we should build wooden houses.

[Sysman]

And the rest of the world has dry cellars.

[BlasterBates]

Why don't you read the article and comment on that, rather than continuing on this rather ridiculous debate about wooden houses and ventilation in the cellars.

[TimberWolf]

What about mixing wood with mud and dung and making an excellent round house? Or make a house of straw, from straw bails?

Wood is a better insulator (poorer thermal conductor) than cement or concrete btw, though slightly better than ice. Snow probably even beats concrete.

[TimberWolf]

Why don't you read the article and comment on that, rather than continuing on this rather ridiculous debate about wooden houses and ventilation in the cellars.

What article?