Browse Forums Heating, Cooling & Insulation 1 Aug 18, 2021 5:57 pm Are the typically used lighter hollow bricks, the ones with the the holes, fine to use in a reverse brick veneer construction to get that thermal capacity effect you want? I'm building in Perth and my builder has told me that the RBV thermal capacity won't work unless they're a more solid type of brick. I'm sure the solid brick is superior but would the hollow ones be ineffective altogether? Re: Hollow bricks fine to use for double RBV? 2Aug 18, 2021 6:49 pm In RBV bricks are behind insulation, so the thermal capacity effect will be more or less from passive solar heating plus you cooling/heating and for those it won't matter which types of bricks you use as only thermal mass of the bricks itself will matter. No matter which bricks you are using, you will be likely have more than enough of thermal mass and you might even consider to not brick certain walls (e.g. south facing or bedrooms) to make sure you are having less inertia for cooling/heating. If you brick all walls, be prepared that your house will be having a significant inertia during cooling and heating cycles. Re: Hollow bricks fine to use for double RBV? 3Aug 19, 2021 1:59 pm So are you saying there isn't much benefit to be felt with having bricks that have cooled through the night and would therefore make the house a bit slower to get too hot during the day in the summer? There are just so many factors at play at the same time, I just don't want to overlook anything and make a mistake. Appreciate the response! Re: Hollow bricks fine to use for double RBV? 4Aug 19, 2021 2:51 pm There is benefit, but your bricks are behind insulation, meaning they they should not be getting too hot, especially on southern and eastern sides. Also, as they are behind insulation, they won't be really cooling very fast too, you would need to keep your windows wide open for that. But let's say there is a strike of several very hot days and nights, so your internal bricks will become warm and it will be really hard for your to cool them down as you would have to run aircon for extended period of time before the rooms cool off as most of the energy will be first used to cool off your bricks. However, once they are cooled off, they might keeping cooling for quite a while before they become hot again. This is called thermal inertia and it can be taking between 8-12 hours. But if your place is far from coast and has a good difference between day and night temperatures and you are very rarely having very hot nights, then you should be okay. If you are still near the coast, the most typical scenario for you will be to open the windows during the night to let the bricks cool off naturally, however, by the end of the day your bedrooms will eventually heat on, so you might need to run your aircons for several hours before going to bed (and then shut off aircons and open the windows for the night). Re: Hollow bricks fine to use for double RBV? 6Aug 20, 2021 9:02 pm Pedro4137 Hi, Yes need solid brick and sun to hit walls. It’s about storing heat in brick It sounds like you're saying the bricks only heat up in direct sunlight which isn't the idea behind RBV. The sun won't hit walls because the outside is insulated. Re: Hollow bricks fine to use for double RBV? 7Aug 20, 2021 9:10 pm alexp79 There is benefit, but your bricks are behind insulation, meaning they they should not be getting too hot, especially on southern and eastern sides. Also, as they are behind insulation, they won't be really cooling very fast too, you would need to keep your windows wide open for that. But let's say there is a strike of several very hot days and nights, so your internal bricks will become warm and it will be really hard for your to cool them down as you would have to run aircon for extended period of time before the rooms cool off as most of the energy will be first used to cool off your bricks. However, once they are cooled off, they might keeping cooling for quite a while before they become hot again. This is called thermal inertia and it can be taking between 8-12 hours. But if your place is far from coast and has a good difference between day and night temperatures and you are very rarely having very hot nights, then you should be okay. If you are still near the coast, the most typical scenario for you will be to open the windows during the night to let the bricks cool off naturally, however, by the end of the day your bedrooms will eventually heat on, so you might need to run your aircons for several hours before going to bed (and then shut off aircons and open the windows for the night). I'll be 1km from the coast, and should get typical southerly winds in the evenings in Coogee if I understand Perth correctly(only been here a year an a half.) The main living area and lots of windows are facing South. That means I'll get lots of direct sunlight in the hotter months right? From my reading, that would mean invest lots in making sure the windows keep as much heat out as possible with low-e glass/double glazing? Otherwise I'll run into the problem of fighting to cool down bricks like you mentioned. This is all new stuff to me, I really really appreciate the responses! Re: Hollow bricks fine to use for double RBV? 8Aug 20, 2021 10:24 pm South facing windows will never get direct sunlight at any point of the year. Northern windows will get winter sun and if there are appropriate eaves will be shaded in summer. Western windows are the worse as you get the full afternoon sun. Accessible Carpentry & Cabinets accessiblecarpentry@gmail.com accessiblecarpentry.com.au https://www.facebook.com/pages/Accessible-Carpentry-Cabinets/583314911709039 Re: Hollow bricks fine to use for double RBV? 10Aug 21, 2021 7:30 pm Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Insulation should stop heating the brick, but if you don't have double glazing the energy efficiency is incredibly diminished. You can get double brick fully insulated (common in England) which would be more efficient than reverse veneer IMHO. Eaves overhand improves this dramatically also. If the external brick is a light colour with full cavity insulation, even better if rendered and painted white, you will get more thermal efficiency than reverse brick veneer. Double brick can easily be cavity insulated, which blows all the other materials out the water. Window glazing size is the weakest link, unless the windows are double glazed. *All in my opinion only Re: Hollow bricks fine to use for double RBV? 11Aug 21, 2021 7:38 pm Get your thermal efficiency promises on paper. There's aluminum siding salesmen everywhere today. In some cases trying to sell products that only need low skill labour. *All in my opinion only Re: Hollow bricks fine to use for double RBV? 12Aug 21, 2021 10:24 pm Doughboy Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Insulation should stop heating the brick, but if you don't have double glazing the energy efficiency is incredibly diminished. You can get double brick fully insulated (common in England) which would be more efficient than reverse veneer IMHO. Eaves overhand improves this dramatically also. If the external brick is a light colour with full cavity insulation, even better if rendered and painted white, you will get more thermal efficiency than reverse brick veneer. Double brick can easily be cavity insulated, which blows all the other materials out the water. Window glazing size is the weakest link, unless the windows are double glazed. You can insulate RBV better than double brick due to cavity space limitation, plus external bricks collect heat and continue to radiate it through insulation (as well as outside) even after sun goes down. I would agree that glazing and overall house air leakage preparation (e.g. cracks, etc.) is more important than walls. Re: Hollow bricks fine to use for double RBV? 13Aug 27, 2021 2:02 am chippy South facing windows will never get direct sunlight at any point of the year. Northern windows will get winter sun and if there are appropriate eaves will be shaded in summer. Western windows are the worse as you get the full afternoon sun. I see. I've been trying to find some good resources to get my head around orientation and sun impact. Appreciate this info. Re: Hollow bricks fine to use for double RBV? 14Aug 27, 2021 2:08 am Doughboy Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Insulation should stop heating the brick, but if you don't have double glazing the energy efficiency is incredibly diminished. You can get double brick fully insulated (common in England) which would be more efficient than reverse veneer IMHO. Eaves overhand improves this dramatically also. If the external brick is a light colour with full cavity insulation, even better if rendered and painted white, you will get more thermal efficiency than reverse brick veneer. Double brick can easily be cavity insulated, which blows all the other materials out the water. Window glazing size is the weakest link, unless the windows are double glazed. Yeah, I think the next step for me is working out how much sun I'll be expecting on certain windows and picking the option to suit, be it low-e, double glazing or both and if it's worth the money to do it. ShaneG We have been doing heaps of hybrid floors lately. The hollowness is caused by low spots in the slab or subfloor. No slab or particleboard floor is going to be… 1 10402 That sucks! Hope it all works out. Good to move away from steel anyway for all your reasons, but it's also thermally poor. 16 17857 If what you describe is correct then the brick wall has been dry lined with villa board. That basically means that the villa board is glued to the brick wall with… 3 8310 |