Kilopascal wrote in USMA 9720:
>I've never been to Cuba and doubt I'll ever get the chance to. but, from
>what little I've seen in pictures and TV, it doesn't seem like much is made
>of wood. It appears that most structures are made of stone, brick , cement,
>adobe, or some similar material. My brother lives in Mesa, Arizona, and the
>three times I visited him there, I never saw a wooden home or building.
>Everything was "cement" or some similar material. I don't think wood/lumber
>could take the high heat.
The basic reason that people in hot climates use masonry construction
rather than wood is that masonry has a much larger heat capacity than wood.
The result is that inside a heavy masonry building the temperature tends
to be the 24-hour average exterior temperature. The cave men were not
stupid.
On the other hand, in climates where winter heating is needed, as in
Canada, insulation rather than heat capacity is the more important quality.
