You’re correct that it is more energy efficient to heat, but the US spends much more energy heating buildings compared to cooling them. As the person you’re responding to pointed out, the difference between cold days and comfortable temperatures is usually much, much higher than the difference between hot days and comfortable temperatures for most people.

That's reasonable

Then again the difference between lethal cold temperatures and comfortable temperatures is also much much bigger than lethal hot temperatures and comfortable temperatures too. EG humans can be pretty comfortable between 32F and 80-90F. The upper limit is pretty much 110F, so only a 20F difference. There's not really any sort of clothing short of some kind of spacesuit with a personal cooling device that can make those temperatures survivable.

Humans can tolerate ridiculously cold temperatures with adequate clothing layers. With clothing you can buy at Walmart you can be pretty comfortable at -40F. With specialized equipment there's basically no limit to how cold the surroundings can be

Not so much with ridiculously hot. Being too hot is just a more complex problem to solve

> the US spends much more energy heating buildings compared to cooling them

I was curious about the stats here:

The latest numbers I can find indicate that the annual US 50-state heating-to-comfort requirement is about 2.5x the cooling-to-comfort requirement. Measured in BTUs.

However: a) These numbers do not account for HVAC energy efficiency (much higher for heating than cooling -- maybe ~90% heat, ~50% cool, so that 2.5x would be closer to 1.5x today) b) Due to warming trends, these numbers have been changing. Was ~3x in 1990, trendlines look like they might converge by the end of the century. With efficiency considered, convergence in about 25 years.

Some obvious unaccounted factors: a) Changes in HVAC fuel or efficiency mix, e.g. heat pumps b) Changes in climate trends c) Migration patterns (more people headed to TX/AZ than AK)

Have a look at how heat pumps work. The difference between cooling and heating is just which end you point inside or outside.

For efficiency it only matter what the delta-T with the outside environment is. Since that is typically lower when cooling than when heating, it is therefore cheaper. Just look at your power bill.

> Have a look at how heat pumps work

Most buildings where I live don't have heat pumps