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[redback]

About 25 years ago the Australian government announced a new scheme to ensure energy efficient housing. A computer program was to predict the internal temperatures of a house using the plans of the proposed house. The predictions were to be very accurate and energy savings were to be enormous. Many years later I drove pass a suburb with all 5 star rated houses and noticed the hot summer sun was shining on window glass everywhere. It worked out that the computer program was a complete phony. The human factors like opening windows for ventilation were omitted from the calculations and landscaping was too difficult and omitted as well. The formulae were absolutely riddled with holes of major, missing, pertinent factors, so much so, that a university study found that a 1 star building used less power than the 5 star ones.

I suspect the global warming computer programs are similarly utter BS. The energy efficient housing program is no longer used in Australia.

 

[zigs]

Before I came to Kent I did a conversion of an old British Legion Hall (World War 1 army hut) into a modern house. I built it beyond building regulations, more insulation than required, solar water heating, wood burner, low E glass with argon gas filled double glazing.

When I came to sell it, the bloke doing the compulsory energy efficiency certificate said it wasn't up to building regulations as he wasn't allowed to take into account the different insulation materials.

I'd used insulation that was twice the u value of rockwool but he could only measure it as the same thickness as rockwool

It got a C certificate - it should have been an A+