No matter if you lose heat through conduction or radiation or just leaving your windows open, your heating system must replace whatever heat you lose. The amount of heat you lose depends entirely on the difference in temperature between your house (the heat source) and the outside (the heat sink). Think about it. If you were keeping your house at 70 degrees, and it was 70 degrees outside, you would lose no heat at all. It is temperature differential and nothing else that determines heat loss.
Sorry, but I don't buy this. If this were true, it would be no use at all to insulate your house. How do you explain then that, back in the days when people did not insulate their houses, they easily needed a 35 to 40 Kw furnace to warm their houses to a comfortable temperature?
Doug is correct. Insulation, due to its low thermal conductivity, only reduces the
rate of heat transfer. It does not prevent heat transfer. You
will eventually reach equilibrium with the ambient outside temperature, if you're not actively heating/cooling, and the ambient outside temperature remains constant.
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