There's a new kid on the block: Quadruple glazing. It's been around for years in curtain-walling systems, but is now being presented as the next development for the domestic market.
However, efficient though it is in preventing heat-loss, quad glazing is not without an environmental cost: Glass manufacture (melting sand at very high temperature) takes a great deal of energy. A member of the West Midlands Manufacturing Advisory Group once described premature sealed-unit failure as "an environmental disaster". Quad glazing will, at a stroke, double the environmental cost.
Somewhere, there is a point of diminishing returns, and my gut feeling is that that quad glazing is over the top. I tend to prefer the Heat Mirror approach which achieves much the same result for a far lower environmental cost. I would be very interested in seeing the embodied energy cost of the two systems set against notional energy savings.
The best energy-saving measure is still another layer of clothing with the thermostat turned down, and there's vast scope for the future in intelligent heat-mapping and distribution inside buildings.
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