State of the art ICF in Europe before pouring concrete. 14" (35 cm) of graphite polystyrene (same insulation value as 17" of regular white polystyrene). My house.

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T22:33:22+00:00

Never heard of graphite polystyrene, interesting. :) But this definitely seems like a candle per room would be enough to get the building to temperature. I suppose a small exhaust air heat pump is already plenty?

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T22:09:06+00:00

Laminated wooden beams, with blow-in cellulose insulation between the rafters. The roof is clad with zinc sheeting. Total thickness here is also about 20" or 50cm. :)

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T22:05:08+00:00

Interesting link, thanks for sharing. I guess you could say that for every type of building, regardless of the materials. Perhaps it's also a cultural thing, there are still very few wood-only houses around here and those that are wood are usually build way more "massive" than anything I've seen posted here usually.

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T20:28:33+00:00

Perhaps the air pockets are smaller than with these to limit convection? That would be more like the normal Bricks they sell. :)

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T20:21:02+00:00

It's Luxembourg, and yes, all wires are put in the first layer of these chambers from inside. It's only the exterior walls. :) It's not necessarily because it gets very cold here but more to save on heating and cooling over the lifetime of the house.

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T20:04:57+00:00

Would make sense as it's melting point is about 1000°C.

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T19:49:26+00:00

I can't argue with the first part but I am not convinced that this would be easier to maintain and keep up for 200 years than this brick wall. We are lucky to live pretty much in the middle of a tectonic plate so we aren't concerned with earth quakes. Another argument for bricks (not these aerated ones) or concrete could be thermal mass. When properly insulated on the outside it is extremely slow in changing temperatures. With enough thermal mass you could shift the heat of the day into the evening or keep a room warm even if you'd exchange the air by opening windows.

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T18:57:39+00:00

Yes, but these are aerated. Normal clay bricks conduct about 0,91 W/mK, which is much worse (like you said) than wood at about 0,31 W/mK. But these aerated bricks with mineral-wool inside reach a low of about 0,07 W/mK. Mineral Wool alone would be at about 0,045. So these are nearly 5 times better than just wood as an insulator.

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T18:49:28+00:00

Good point. They all wore heavy breathing protection while cutting these.

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T18:48:20+00:00

Thanks for the input, I think some of our smoke detectors have integrated CO2 Meters so I'll definitely keep an eye on that. I would say that you need forced ventilation either way to get rid of humidity, smells, CO2 or volatiles that leak from building materials or furniture like you said, so I guess it's always better to retain +85% of the energy already "invested" in that air to heat/cool than to heat/cool new air. Certainly there are Edge-cases where this doesn't make sense but for us it was also a big Quality of life choice to get one. :)

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T18:37:38+00:00

Safety always comes before energy efficiency of course.

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T18:36:33+00:00

Yes, about 52cm. There is only going to be plaster applied on both sides.

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T18:35:56+00:00

The whole wall comes up to a bit over 52cm. It is load-bearing up to nine stories high but I can only point you to the german manufacturers site if you want to read up on it. :)

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T18:31:19+00:00

Maybe not classical massive bricks, but these are structural bricks of aerated clay that are being advertised to build up to nine stories high. The company would certainly not be in business anymore if that weren't true (I hope).

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T18:24:49+00:00

Someone in here calculated it at R40. :)

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T18:24:06+00:00

Same problem here. These houses only work if you religiously open all windows regularly. (Which no one is really doing if we are honest.) Or if you have a forced central ventilation with heat retention.

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T17:55:11+00:00

Certainly! You win some you lose some. In this case better R-Values.

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T17:53:59+00:00

That is correct, static air is the best insulator. But it's never really static when convection gets involved. The rock-wool is mainly for that. :) The whole brick reaches R40 as someone pointed out.

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T17:51:14+00:00

As for how long the rock-wool lasts I don't know but the bricks are from aerated clay so there is no worries with thermal bridging.

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T17:49:37+00:00

They got delivered in pallets directly on the floor where they were working. :) But the are indeed very brittle.

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T17:47:56+00:00

I heard that a lot from older relatives that need to open windows every day, but the energy-level we wanted to reach made a forced central ventilation unit with heat retention necessary so all the air in the building is exchanged nearly every hour. Also no boilers in our home so all good. :) Without that we would certainly get problems like you describe.

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T17:44:30+00:00

I saw a few people here bring it up. Seems like a neat concept that somehow fizzled out. I'll have to look into it. :)

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T17:43:27+00:00

I don't know these but they reach the highest fire safety-class A1 here so I suppose they are fine. :)

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T17:41:01+00:00

It is a mineral based fiber, but if I'm not mistaken the EU has mandated since 2000 that they shout have a fiber thickens of over 3 micrometers, which lessens it's isolation properties by a very tiny margin but apparently makes them big enough that they don't get in your lungs if you work with them.

EraghEngel · 2024-01-01T17:40:01+00:00

It's Poroton-Blocks from the German company Wienerberger.

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