As our climate has changed and our need to transition away from burning fossil fuel for energy has become increasingly apparent, new construction materials and methods are gaining popularity.
If an older building is like a paper coffee cup that loses heat quickly, our current buildings could be compared to a thermos with the lid off. It will retain more heat than the paper cup, but it will not retain that heat for long.
Surprisingly, although California has some of the toughest building regulations in the nation, leaks are not regulated. In the 1990s, a group of German scientists added up all our allowable leaks and concluded that we have the equivalent of a window open all year long.