As heatwave conditions persist, technology improves and buildings become outdated, an energy consultant says sometimes it is cheaper to demolish an inefficient home and start again.
In the Northern Territory, buildings became stronger, lower, heavier and less tropical after Cyclone Tracy destroyed Darwin in 1974.
It has not been a popular move among some residents, who watch the march of cookie-cutter suburbs and long for the days of elevated tropical homes on big, breezy blocks.
Architect Jenny Culgan laments a trend of "windowless eskys on top of each other and blockwork re-radiating heat back at you all night".
"The thermal mass of houses is what kills people. You have to have an air conditioner running because your house heats up all day and takes forever to cool down," she said.
"Tropical, lightweight housing — where it's 32 degrees outside, it's 31 degrees inside, and then vice versa at night — is ideal. So you cool faster."
Housing built for conditions
An example of lightweight housing is an insulated stud frame, plasterboard inside, and protected outside with corrugated iron or similar.
"That's the premise of the old elevated tropical house: the heat gets out the windows, down the floor, through the roof, wherever, just to get out of the house," Ms Culgan said.
"You might pay more for a tropical house at the start, but your running costs are much less.
"And I don't think that's something that people appreciate enough.
"You might have to have a slightly smaller house, but you can live in it.
"And you're not spending thousands on air conditioning all the time."
What do we need to do?
Ms Culligan said blocks smaller than 600sq m were difficult to cool.
"You need good urban planning design so you can stagger houses, get the breezes through," she said.
"But developers don't like big blocks because they make less money.
"Let houses breathe so that it is a great place to live."
No simple, cheap fix
Urban Development Institute NT chief executive and town planner Catriona Tatam said extreme weather coding, land tenure insecurity, vulnerable transport and a high cost of construction drove the cost of developments.
"The pressures of development and the higher construction and living costs mean that affordability has become the critical issue, rather than energy efficiency and sustainability," she said.
"The design of many of these homes has meant it's become the norm just to turn on the air conditioning.
"A lot of the styles could have just been transplanted from down south."
Ms Tatam said it was important to incentivise sustainability and cooling, put sustainable initiatives in, and reduce the risk for developers to pass on those initiatives.
"We have to work out which combination of built environment options, whether that's changes to roof materials, planting trees, pavements et cetera, would best serve those objectives.
"And then for each mitigation option, we need to choose a combination of which policy mechanisms and instruments are needed, whether that's zoning incentives, tax rebates, regulations, or guidelines."
A spokeswoman for the NT Government Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Logistics said tropical-style home construction was supported.
"Cross ventilation provided by louvres and other window types is an important part of achieving occupant comfort in the Territory," she said.
"Highly openable windows, in addition to other hot climate design techniques such as good orientation, wide eaves and verandas, can also improve a home's star rating."
Is it cheaper to demolish an inefficient home?
Energy consultant and solar battery enthusiast Alan Langworthy says yes, in the long run.
But there is a plan C.
"Some of the apartment buildings around can be very environmentally friendly," he said.
"Maybe we've got to move away from the idea of everybody having a single house on a block, particularly if you don't have any room for a tree, and moving into a sensitively designed apartment building to gain the advantages that you want."
Mr Langworthy predicts the end of constant air conditioning, without assistance from solar.
"I think it's going to become almost impossible to afford imported power to drive air conditioners in the future. It's just going to become too difficult," he said.
"Electricity is a very, very valuable source of energy, because you can do so much with electricity and it's way under-priced.
"Electricity should be much more expensive because it's so expensive to produce it."
