(Continued from previous message)

close it up as you go out, it never gets anywhere near that hot by
the time you come home, you walk in and turn the cooler on, in a 10
minutes or so the temp is fine. The fibro houses are actually worse
in that situation coz they are so much hotter.

You are living in the past Keef, every house has some form of
cooling now in those hot dry areas. Mainly because the cost is
affordable and passive really doesnt work very well in comparison.

What you can do is to use passive to reduce the amount of time you
actually turn the cooling on for, and thats what I do. I notice that
my cooling isnt on when most of the neighbors is. You can hear from
outside the house who has got their cooler on and who hasnt. BUT the
passive wont provide acceptible climate control in the hottest weather,
those hottest days still need decent modern cooling. On the other hand
I almost never have to run mine overnight, tho most of the neighbors do.

RS> But does sweet fuck all for the daytime peak. What you want for the
RS> daytime peak is the reverse, high thermal inertia, minimal heat inflow
RS> thru the walls and floor and roof so the inside temp lags the outside.

KR> the technique of an insulated and well ventilated roof cavity
KR> together with a wide verandah to shade the walls, and a good flow of
KR> air around and below the house give the best possible passive results.

Yes, and they just aint anywhere near good enough. You end up with
the house fucking hot after you do that on the hottest days. So EVERYONE
adds proper modern cooling to that to get acceptible temperatures.
And when you do that, some of the approaches like a highset with its
very low thermal inertia, its very low thermal resistance, are bad news.
You really do need a quite different approach for the daytime peak, as
high a thermal resistance as you can get, coz your cooling running costs
are basically just pumping out what does come in thru that thermal resistance.

KR> most people would put up with a higher mid-day
KR> peak in order to have cooler evenings and nights.

And today you dont have to Keef, you can afford to get a livable
daytime peak temp, and that automatically means that the evening/night
is even better. The world has moved on, essentially because passive
alone just doesnt provide and acceptible level of comfort anymore.

Yes, if you can only afford passive, the highset has some very real
advantages in that stuff you say. BUT the world has moved on and there
arent that many people who have to just use passive now. So the highset
is waning fast because of that. In the dry areas the purely passive has
long gone. In the high humidity areas its still a problem, but then they
dont get the extremes of temp anyway, its very low 30s maxes in Bris,
its low 40s in the hotter areas, which are dry, so you can use coolers.
The world has moved on.

KR> down south the opposite is true.

RS> It aint that simple. And doesnt explain why nothing
RS> remotely like 50/50 of new houses in Bris are highset.
RS> And bugger all in the better suburbs with new houses.

KR> highsets are more expensive,

Depends on how you measure it. Bill is right about the extra space
you get under them. Its a bit hard to compare on price because you
cant just take the floor area of the top floor and divide that into
the price. Yes, the same floor area in a single floor on the ground
is definitely cheaper, but its not a very valid comparison.

And you cant really even just compare the cost of the extra height
with the cost of air conditioning, because one is capital, the other
has a large running cost component. And you would normally for other
reasons use a better standard of wall stuff anyway. Highsets are
expensive to do with masonry. But that light timber/fibro construction
is fading fast now for non highsets. Even the housing commissions dont
usually build them anymore.

KR> and the southern migrants usually but
KR> the bv shit box that they are used to.

Nup, its got fuck all to do with that. You certainly dont find
that there are only blowins from the south living in BV in Bris.

BG> Indeed, the further north you go, the less frequently you'll
BG> see lowset houses, presumably for that precise reason.

RS> In the past, sure. Pity we were talking about new houses tho.

BG> In Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra though, I'll agree, most are lowset.

RS> And most new houses in Brisbane are too Bill.

KR> well the el-cheapo shit boxes put up to attract southern migrants are.

RS> Still bullshit, the bulk of new houses in Bris arent for migrants.

KR> it is predicted that by the turn of the century, the brisbane - gold
KR> coast area, which will probably be one big metropolis by then will be
KR> more populous than melbourne. the locals must be breeding like cats (:

Poor old Keef. Says sweet fuck all about who is buying the new houses
Keef. Just like anywhere else, a significant number of Bris residents
change houses, and they hardly ever move to a new highset now. Bill is
right that there is a higher rate of highsets in the poor areas, but he
is miles out in his claim that 50/50 new houses in Bris are highsets.

--- PQWK202