If you think the USA had bad standards, In Thailand it's common (even today!) to build skyscrapers out of cement and single-pane glass.

To bangkok office workers, it's pretty natural to blast the AC all day and have the office still be above 28'C

What a sweeping generalization.

Furthermore, unless you're in an area of the country that requires the use of a lot of AC--or you have electric baseboard heat--insulation doesn't even play that much into electricity usage.

I can see why one would bristle at the term 'cheap', but where energy efficiency is concerned there is a big difference between the EU and US. Energy costs are higher, regulations tend to be stricter, and usage lower in the EU.

On insulation, I'm assuming you mean in areas where AC isn't heavily used insulation doesn't help electricity bills if heat is provided by gas/oil?

>On insulation, I'm assuming you mean in areas where AC isn't heavily used insulation doesn't help electricity bills if heat is provided by gas/oil?

Correct. Heavy use of electric heat is fairly uncommon as it's relatively expensive. (In the Northeast, it would be considered a serious negative if a house had only electric heat.) Of course, insulation helps with overall energy usage if there's either a lot of heating, a lot of cooling, or both--however it's provided. I'm also sure the US tends to have larger houses, more large electric appliances, and other home features that increase electricity use.

I've lived in a lot of cities through the 'rust belt', and I'd estimate that half if not more of pre-1970 houses had no insulation at all.

Seems like Western Europe is getting up to speed with standardized insulation. People are monitoring heat leaks in buildings etc.

Two things: 1) I wonder how much energy could be "saved" with proper insulation. Per Country, per planet. 2) Insulation seems like a human sense, by that I mean, whenever I've lived in an old, stone wall house, I enjoyed the delay in temperature. It's still refreshing when the sun hits hard, and still mildly warm when cold settles.

More efficient lifestyle and better quality of life ? I'd sign.

Partly inspired by this thread, I read a couple of EU reports and realised that 50% of energy consumption in EU goes to heating and cooling. That is huge. Of course it includes industrial heating, but that is 18% in total (~third of 50%).

Clearly, there is lot to win here,with existing insulation techniques. we could do a lot in a short-term with existing technologies, it's mostly policy and financing issue.