Radiation                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Radiation is obviously one of the most intuitive methods to increase heat gains of a building by improving the solar gains, mainly through its transparent surfaces. For this reason, it would be very good to act on the orientation and characteristics of windows and openings during the design phase of a building in order to maximize the heat gains due to the sun radiation. Being during winter solstice the sun elevation in Semipalatinsk very low (reaching not more than 18°), a possible way to increase solar gains could be avoiding the use of vertical shading devices that could negatively affect this parameter. However this study is much more complicated and should be analysed for each situation, because solar beams are not only influencing thermal comfort but also visual comfort and internal lighting, so the solutions can be very different according to the different destination or type of building under analysis.