[bluGill]

When I look closer, the newer the building the better it tends to do in general. And as the article itself points out, Europe doesn't use nearly as much wood which changes things (not always for the good - Europe tends to have terrible insulation and their construction materials are not helping - though newer buildings do well here)

[ajuc]

European houses in climates where it matters have better insulation that American houses.

You can check it's true by looking at the energy use per capita.

[cycomanic]

> When I look closer, the newer the building the better it tends to do in general.

Which should be in favour of the US, which has much younger housing stock. So likely the statistics are even worse (from a US standpoint) if we consider building age.

>And as the article itself points out, Europe doesn't use nearly as much wood which changes things

Actually many new large buildings in Germany, Scandinavia... are build using timber constructions.

>(not always for the good - Europe tends to have terrible insulation and their construction materials are not helping - though newer buildings do well here)

You are joking right? When was the last time you have been to a northern European building? From my experience they tend to be much better insulated than most US houses (likely also because energy/heating costs tend to be higher). The passive house standards originated in Germany.

[bluGill]

a passive house in germany would not even meet the minimun requirments for Minnesota where it wouldn'd be passive. Climate matters.

[cycomanic]

Sure climate matters, however your assertion seems to be incorrect.

> Almost all Passivhauses rely on: very heavy insulation, R-40 to R-60 walls, R-50 to R-90 roofs, and often R-30 to 50 sub-slab insulation, triple-glazed low-e windows, and exceptional avoidance of thermal bridges (except for wood framing) ...

from [1]

While Minnesota requires significantly less insulation:

> Wood frame wall insulation: R-20 or 13+5 (CZ6), R-21 (CZ7) Foundation or crawl space insulation: R-15 insulation for concrete masonry foundations and R-10 applied to the exterior of the wall; R-10 continuous insulation is allowed on the exterior of the foundation wall if the air leakage rate is below 2.6 ACH50 Duct insulation: Depending on the location, R-3.3 to R-8 and vapor or weather retarder might be required from [2]

To compare to a much more comparable climate. In Sweden the U-value (metric units) of a window must be better than 1 W/m^2K, Minnesota building standard requires a U-factor (imperial) of better than 0.32 Btu/h·ft2·F which corresponds to a U-value (metric units) of 1.82 W/m^2K. Note lower is better, so for a similar climate the European code requires almost twice as good windows.

[1] https://buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-025-the-p...

[2] https://www.tradesmance.com/career-central/minnesota-insulat...