@girlonthenet Strictly speaking a properly insulated building, such as a passive house should need neither heating or cooling, so no A/C required.

It still needs to move air about and be properly constructed, but it shouldn't need A/C to stay cool.

@gnate @girlonthenet most of us don't because most politicians believe it's more important to build cheap houses, than it is to build houses people can afford to heat or cool...

Trying to give insulation away is almost impossible, but the second energy prices go up in a cold snap or we get a heatwave, people complain...

We did what we could with our houses and it makes a difference, though it's more effective in a new build.

@drajt @girlonthenet
Quite honestly, I've never seen houses that didn't need either active heating or cooling (or both.)

I'm aware of some clever designs, like Roman/Spanish villas (and igloos for that matter), but nothing modern. Are there some I'm missing out on?

@gnate @girlonthenet the Germans developed the passive house standard, where you have a highly insulated house which uses heat exchangers to keep the internal temperature constant without any active heating at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house

The technique has been around for quite a few years but is constantly ignored by politicians.

@drajt @girlonthenet
Ah neat! Thanks for sharing that. I wasn't aware that Passive House was a specific term. I'm all for seeing more of these, but I let go of hope for living in one. As it is, the "new" house I'm in is only 60 years old instead of 140.

I imagine careful design is necessary with such airtightness, considering potential for CO2 buildup.

(It's also seems there's some leeway in the passive vs active terminology that added to my confusion. "Passive" can still use >0 energy.)

@gnate @girlonthenet I'd love to have a passive house, but our first house was about 70 years old and our current house is over 200 years old.

We've done what we can but it's never going to be enough, given what we started with.