If you have any questions or comments about the content of this site, please contact Ross Maher, Think Brick Australia's Sustainability Manager and the author of the blog. ‘Wasting Energy’ proves clay brick is best
Think Brick Australia today released a new report that demonstrates clay brick’s superiority. The report shows that in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth (where more than 80% of the population lives), a house that has some clay brick improves heating and cooling energy efficiency regardless of orientation or housing construction.
In nearly every case, insulated double brick performed the best, however, in Brisbane, standard double brick construction was the best performer.
Wasting Energy was prepared by Think Brick Australia to present the interim results (and implications) from Phase I of the eight-year Thermal Performance Research with the University of Newcastle. These results were tested and confirmed by Australia’s leading energy and greenhouse consultancy, Energetics.
Clay brick improved the heating and cooling energy efficiency in nearly all of the major Australian capital cities because it contains thermal mass which:
- as an external cladding, delays heat and cold entering a house, and
- as an internal cladding, absorbs and stores heat during the day (meaning air conditioners don’t have to work as hard in summer), and during winter, releases this heat back into the room at night (meaning less need for heaters).
As demonstrated in the graph and table above, insulated double brick (in most cases) provides the greatest improvement in heating and cooling energy efficiency, where in Melbourne the improvement can be as much as 32%.
Wasting Energy also discusses the problematic energy efficiency regulation in Australia which in most cases promotes houses being built without clay bricks or other forms of thermal mass.
Great to see some study has been done in this area showing clearly that double brick is the winner when it comes to heating and cooling energy efficiency.
I have read many of the ‘publications’ on this site and, whilst I totally support your calls for a thermal performance rating system for walls that addresses both thermal lag and resistance, I find it really confusing that your ‘research’ doesn’t clearly state the insulation values of the various construction systems modelled and compared in your Wasting Energy and other publications. For example, what insulation (if any) is included in the reverse brick veneer building?
Further, I fail to understand why Think Brick engages in ’spin’ about embodied energy. Yes, brick has embodied energy and yes – if used well (in thermal performance terms) – it can more than 5 times offset this embodied energy over lifecycle through operational energy savings. So what’s the problem? Additionally, you are making substantial progress in reducing the embodied energy in many of your products so – why the spin?
I find it confusing and distracting from the important message that, when used INTERNALLY and INSULATED from the external environment in a passively heated or cooled house, thermal mass (which includes brick) will inevitably deliver better thermal performance outcomes than low mass construction. This is because it amplifies the beneficial aspects of the climate (e.g. diurnal range and passive heating/cooling). In a badly designed home, thermal mass can have the opposite effect – amplifying the adverse aspects of the climate. Please be honest about this. I believe it strengthens your arguments.
In closing, I suggest that you be more discerning in your advice on what constitutes good design for thermal performance and CLEARLY warn consumers and designers that, while high thermal mass in well designed homes has beneficial energy outcomes, it can have negative energy and GGE consequences in poorly designed ones.
Many issues here, and to take them one at a time, these are my thoughts on your comments:
1 – In Wasting Energy, all buildings – other than the double brick – are insulated to minimum Building Code of Australia (BCA) standards for each climate zone. This comes straight out of the BCA and are the ‘deemed-to-satisfy’ (DTS) provisions for each walling type. It was definitely an oversight not to mention that the reverse brick veneer wall included insulation, but the point was not actually about insulation values, but rather that all DTS provisions which most builders and developers use are not equal. What the modelling and research from the University of Newcastle shows is that there is no correlation between R-value and energy efficiency.
2 – Think Brick Australia hasn’t deliberately engaged in spin around embodied energy; on the contrary we have invested significantly in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) research to better understand our position and the implications of this. The research will be finished shortly and published in the second half of 2009. With this work outstanding, Think Brick Australia has made very few comments on embodied energy other than it only represents one side of the energy consumption story.
3 – You make a good point regarding good and bad use of thermal mass. For this reason the modelling we used in Wasting Energy included two project homes (not necessarily well designed), modelled on each axis in three very different climates. The results of this extensive modelling demonstrated that even after taking into consideration the good and bad of thermal mass, in nearly all situations (and definitely on average) a house with thermal mass is more energy efficiency than one without.
This point is significant because under current legislation builders can exploit a loophole to use cheaper, less efficient materials to build a house, and unfortunately, without changes to proposed future legislation this loophole will only be bigger. This is despite the decision to increase the stringency of the energy efficiency provisions in the Building Code.
4 – Finally, the core activities of Think Brick Australia are to promote good design. This includes thermal mass that is insulated, but also depends on a number of other factors such as orientation, ventilation, shading etc. To this end, Think Brick Australia has invested significantly in a new design tool for architects, building designers and consumers called ‘Designing for Climate’. This will be formally launched in July 09, however, much of the content has been already loaded and available for many months now. (http://www.designingforclimate.com.au)
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