If YETI can make a cup that keeps water cold or hot for hours and a cooler that holds ice for hours, then why aren’t we building houses with that same material?

Question

If YETI can make a cup that keeps water cold or hot for hours and a cooler that holds ice for hours, then why aren’t we building houses with that same material?

In: 824

Answer 1

Yeti cups are using vacuums between layers of metal to prevent heat transfer. We do that sometimes with window panes to improve insulation, but it’s very hard to scale that up to a whole building. Any leak, and the whole effort is lost. It’s possible but would be very very expensive and would probably require frequent maintenance.