> The idea of planning a house without taking into account the site where it will sit will never produce a good house.

There's a free software tool from National Renewable Energy Labs that lets you make a rough sketch of your house, including orientation and try alternate features to determine if adding more insulation would be worth it. Or a more efficient furnace. Each airport (at least in the US) measures weather (temp, wind speed/direction, humidity, cloudiness, etc) every hour. Local climate files will have the past 20 years of weather so you can evaluate the costs/benefits of different systems with your actual records.

https://www.nrel.gov/buildings/beopt.html

Disclaimer: I worked on an older version of this tool.