you tend to end up with very limited life buildings, though, because of problems with water ingress. and they require a lot of plastic products to keep dry at all. and in very cold regions, frost heave makes it *very* difficult to build something underground. and it really is wasteful to use electricity to light a building when it's already daylight out, no matter how "efficient" the light source may be. a much more efficient way to save on energy is to wear a nice wooly jumper in winter, draw your blinds in summer, and wear less when it's hot.
there are really, really clever things done with thermal mass in above ground buildings, too. you don't need to be in the ground to make use of that to keep things cool in the day and warm at night.
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zvi
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-26 10:53 am (UTC)you tend to end up with very limited life buildings, though, because of problems with water ingress. and they require a lot of plastic products to keep dry at all. and in very cold regions, frost heave makes it *very* difficult to build something underground. and it really is wasteful to use electricity to light a building when it's already daylight out, no matter how "efficient" the light source may be. a much more efficient way to save on energy is to wear a nice wooly jumper in winter, draw your blinds in summer, and wear less when it's hot.
there are really, really clever things done with thermal mass in above ground buildings, too. you don't need to be in the ground to make use of that to keep things cool in the day and warm at night.