Go for zone heating, I have, I like. Also don't discount the lowly dimmer.
DP, i figured you would take into consideration construction of houses and local climate--i just thought i'd mention it as other folks read these threads, too.
In the United States and Canada, basements are very, very common (by which we, here, mean rooms constructed below or almost below ground level--basements frequently have head space above ground level, the floor of the first floor on the sleepers being the ceiling of the basement room). When there was wide-spread construction of "tract housing" after the Second World War, and up to the end of the 1960s, lots of houses were built on poured slab, without a basement. However, people like to have a basement, and in new construction they are much more common than they were as recently as 30 years ago. Many people in the United States also live in houses built in the period from the turn of the 19th to the 20th century up until the outbreak of World War Two, after which new home construction almost ceased entirely.
I always find it interesting to see how such things vary from one environment to another. Canadian houses and housing styles differ almost not at all from American houses and housing styles, with two important differences. Many of the houses and the lots upon which they sit are narrower than is the case in the United States, with corresponding interior dimensions (halls, staircases--even doors) also narrower; and, exhaust fans for the water closets seem to be almost unknown in Canada. That last was a real shocker given that the absence of exhaust fans in water closets in the United States is almost unknown. But if you go to a smaller city, or a rural town in Canada, they are almost indistinguishable from an equivalent American city.
@Setanta,
WC exhaust fans are very rare here in Madison, WI in all but very new construction -- which is unfortunate, given both the high summertime humidity and the high per capita beer consumption.
