http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/11/heat-your-clothes-not-your-house.html
I find that in Aust., which is neither temperate nor boreal, there is minimal experience of heating solutions. As the apocryphal Swedish architect said, a cardboard box with the lid off is better insulated than an Australian house. Bad orientation is implied in that too, given the Swedish/German South-facing "Wintergarten" full of indoor plants which is so pleasant on icy days in the boreal/temperate winter.
But notwithstanding that you have a wife, and women feel the cold more generally and may not be amenable to appropriate clothing for non-scientific reasons, the above link may help you.
That is, it will be necessary to adapt clothing.
I type this wearing such clothing at 16°C inside with no heating on, on May 4 at 325m altitude in a full double brick house that also runs North-South with R5 ceiling batts and R.5 cavity wall glasswool. Eastern facade shaded by 2 big shrubs and a tree; western facade has a 3m deep verandah, no northern windows.
About the lighting, the West facade:
The solar tube e.g. https://solatube.com.au/ can help with lighting.
It may be that when wearing appropriate clothing (mine is always a thermal base layer of wool and other layers as needed on top, e.g currently only a padded sleeveless jacket which keeps me as warm as a winter coat would without constricting my arm movements because it has no shoulder padding and the familiar big armhole), you and your wife are happy with 15 or 16° inside, as people have had to be for millennia. In e.g. August I will add another base layer of a half-zip jumper.
The above may be providing that you have light getting into the house via solar tubes and thus impacting your mood favourably.
If the West gets too hot you could line it with a deep louvred (manual or autom.) verandah for about AUD 40k; it would be open in winter to admit light from about ??? pm and closed in summer.
Posted Friday 4 May 2018 @ 4:41:51 am from IP
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