[Christ]

Originally Posted by Who

I'm not so sure on that. If I were building a house, I'd be trying to incorporate every passif-haus (passive house) idea I could. These are super insulated houses (and definitely not mud), with extremely low infiltration rates, minimized thermal bridging and super high efficiency energy recovery ventilation systems. Combined with topnotch but very expensive fenestration that we can't just go and buy in the window section at Home Depot, the Europeans are finding they can heat a house by internal loads only anywhere south of Scandanavia.

Thermal mass doesn't work out too well when your house isn't in the sunlight for the better part of the day.