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Your editorial on the nuclear debate (BSj 06/05) was timely. With buildings consuming a large part of the UK’s energy supplies, it is time for engineers to agree the best options for reducing their energy consumption and provide the government with their advice.

There are many ways in which building engineers could make a difference. For a start, we should reduce electricity consumption nationally by ensuring that electricity supplies are delivered to customers at close to nominal voltage. And we should discourage the use of electricity for heating buildings where possible.

The current UK hot water heating system design methods could also be revised to incorporate wide temperature difference variable volume water flow systems, following Scandinavian best practice. By traditional UK methods, more water is circulated than necessary at all heating loads, and at less than full load water returns are generally above the design return temperature.

Where mechanical ventilation is essential, we should design ventilation systems for optimum air velocities, minimum pressure drops and minimum air leakage. We should incorporate high efficiency fans and air treatment, and noise cancelling rather than noise attenuation. ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½s themselves should be built to accommodate their engineering systems as designed, and with adequate attention to reducing structural air leakage. And we should use natural rather than mechanical ventilation wherever appropriate.

As engineers, we should find a way to install more small-scale combined heat and power systems. Designers and installers need to understand how to design and install these systems, and conventional UK heating system design needs to be adapted to accommodate them.

We should also introduce district heating on a European scale. This would significantly reduce UK fossil fuel consumption and carbon emissions. District heating can use waste heat not only from electricity generation, but also from industry and renewable sources: the Danish model would be a good one to follow.

In due course we will also need to amend the relevant regulations, and include the new practice in training courses and guidance for engineers, technicians and building inspectors. With appropriate regulations and strict inspections it should be much harder than at present for building contractors to construct and equip buildings and their engineering systems other than as designed.