Australia

You should close everything once it's warmer outside, and only open windows at night.

The other problem is that tradies don’t know how to / can’t be bothered learning to reduce a buildings energy consumption.

We had an argument for weeks with the Site Supervisor because his subcontractor didn’t want to install the Reverse-Cycle condensers on the south side of the house because it was “too hard”.

One of the refrigerant lines insulation was nicked during installation and we started getting condensation stains through the walls.

The contractor came back and once again, he wanted to relocate the condenser on the north side. He kept blaming us for making him run the pipes to a location that was “too hard” for him.

This guy claimed to be an Air Conditioning specialist and couldn’t understand how a heat exchanger in direct sunlight will not be as efficient at cooling as a heat exchanger on the cold side of the house.

https://www.healthyhomes.org.au/news/heh1pp76ot3hpljgf9x3mp7umqndch

A new study published in The Lancet shows 6.5% of deaths in this country are attributed to cold weather, compared with 0.5% from hot weather. Most deaths will be from cardiovascular and respiratory disease, as it’s the heart and lungs that struggle when we are outside our comfort zone.

Cold weather causes twice as many deaths (proportional to population) as in Sweden. Australia's cold weather problem is, when measured in deaths, twice as bad as Sweden's. People DO die from extreme cold here in Australia, much worse than they do in Europe.

We’re not dying from the cold in England either, but pretty much everyone has at least double glazing by now.

it's normally 14C indoors at night.

Oh, that sounds delightful.

I live in Canada, and I am massively heat intolerant. I also suffer from hyperhydrosis, where any temp over 26℃ eventually makes me look like a drowned rat. Like, literally. You put me in a room at 28-30℃ and within about 10 minutes of not moving a muscle my entire face is beading off sweat like someone just dumped a bucket of water over my head, and my shirt is soaked right through.

14℃ is the lower limit for shorts-and-t-shirt temps for me, and represents the ideal shirt-and-tie office temp. It’s also the best temp for heavy physical labour with my shirt off, as sweat can actually have a chance of evaporating faster than I produce it, especially with some sort of a brisk wind. Sweater or business jacket temps start at 6-8℃, and it is only with a cold, super-moist wind that I throw on any kind of a winter jacket above 4℃.

Historically we've primarily relied on ventilation for cool homes in summer. Being well insulated is good for modern air conditioned homes, but actually counterproductive if you want to keep cool by allowing a constant breeze. That's the purpose of the classic Queenslander design, putting the house up on stilts to allow maximum air flow to even come through underneath the living space.

I've actually heard this from just about everyone I've met who lived in much colder climates then later came to Australia

Checks weather in Australia...

Checks weather for January in Virginia...

I'm going to press X to doubt.

It doesn't help that any trade related work is both bullshit expensive, and terrible quality.

Go ahead and try and get a price on installing insulation. It'll be infinite dollars and the blokes that turn up (in a dual cab Ranger) to do the job will be in and out in 15 minutes having done the barest possible minimum and leaving you to deal with all the issues they've created by half-arsing it.

Massive gap under the front door? No worries mate chuck a door snake in front of it.

Seriously I think you're absolutely right it's one of those things everyone is so used to we don't even realise how bad it is compared to other places.