Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Dec 04, 2007 11:34 am Building an architect designed home out of Insulated Concrete Forms on acreage in semi-rural SE Melbourne. Developer approval obtained, engineering complete, getting quotes Re: Polystyrene walls vs Brick 3Dec 04, 2007 11:53 am Building an architect designed home out of Insulated Concrete Forms on acreage in semi-rural SE Melbourne. Developer approval obtained, engineering complete, getting quotes Re: Polystyrene walls vs Brick 13Feb 27, 2014 8:44 am Everyone is looking at the thermal resistance (R value) and ignoring the other important aspect, which is thermal mass (C value). If you want to have a thermally comfortable house with no airconditioning or artificial heating then you want to maximise R x C. For a full brick house you get moderate R (about 1.5) and very high C (about 800). This gives an RC value of about 1200. For a polystyrene house you get very high R (about 7) and poor C (about 1). This gives an RC value of about 7. In practice, other materials in the construction will close this gap, however the full brick house will still have an RC value at least 20 times better than a polystyrene based build. What benefits do you get as a consequence? Take a look at: http://www.boral.com.au/Bricks/bricks-thermal-mass.asp If you live in a temperature climate (any part of Australia other than Tasmania and distinctly above Brisbane then it pays to smooth out the diurnal temperature variations. Demolition August 2009, Construction Started September 2009, Completed December 2010 Re: Polystyrene walls vs Brick 14Feb 27, 2014 9:36 am Interesting thread. I think the only question I have is: Figure 2 in Casa2's link shows that Cavity brick is the worst in terms of energy consumption and insulated cavity brick is the best. Are most new dwellings built with cavity brick insulated or not? EDIT - Just reading further on this I think CSR are perhaps a little bit more balanced in their perspective: http://issue2.csr.swwwipe.com/understan ... insulation Especially here from the above link: * CSR Building knowledge is not suggesting houses should be built with a 200mm cavity; that would be too expensive. The traditional practice of leaving only a 50mm gap is insufficient to achieve excellent thermal performance in very hot and cold conditions. Designers need to consider larger cavities to enable increased insulation R values for better performing cavity brick walls. http://camdenbuild.blogspot.com.au/ by invite only please pm me Re: Polystyrene walls vs Brick 15Mar 04, 2014 7:28 am Quote: Are most new dwellings built with cavity brick insulated or not? In NSW robbie, BASIX would make you install some form of insulation I'm sure. In the other states especially WA I don't think they do from what I've read meaning there are still thousands of homes being built over there that are still inefficient. The big problem with installing some form of insulation in there like 20 - 30mm foilboard is that it would have to be installed as the brick walls are being built - threading it over brick ties etc and as you probably know a 5% damage to most forms of insulation leads to a 50% reduction in its efficiency. Knowing how rough most brickies are I'd see this as a big problem. Pumped in insulation into the cavity would come with its own set of problems too. From your blog I see you are building a brick home - brick veneer ? What did BASIX make you do regarding insulation ? Stewie Re: Polystyrene walls vs Brick 16Mar 04, 2014 8:12 am Hey stewie yes we are building brick veneer with R2.0 insulation in the walls and R3.5 in the ceilings + a 50mm anticon under colourbond (i'm not really clear if this has any significant insulation properties) and 2 whirlybirds. From memory for us to meet basix they just required R1.5 for walls and 2.5 for ceilings - happy for someone else to correct me. If reverse brick veneer was a standard offered by our builder I would most probably have gone for something like that. I didn't want to go on about it but the more I read on the brick cavity insulation prepared by Newcastle Uni the more I questioned it - the report appears to be done with (or perhaps commissioned by a brick company) and the test house had a 200mm insulated cavity and from memory were solid clay bricks whereas most bricks tend to have holes through them. Further the results did not provide a full list of dates, only a short summer period and then just combined season figures. There might be a lot of merit to it don't get me wrong and again please set me straight if I am, I'm just trying to make some sense out of it but I could only find snippets of it not the complete report which I would think brick companies would be very willing to put forward if it was as black and white as they seem to suggest. Thermal mass does definately play a part but when faced with the real cost of getting the benefit from it I'm not convinced that it is a realistic proposition cost wise for most building a new house in the burbs - perhaps if it was more widely adopted the cost would come down. http://camdenbuild.blogspot.com.au/ by invite only please pm me Re: Polystyrene walls vs Brick 17Mar 04, 2014 9:35 am My Dad did this for his small house in WA. He was able to do most of the work himself (he does have building experience, has built 3 houses himself prior to this). The poly bricks are filled with concrete. The energy performance has been great so far, no need for airconditioning and minimal underfloor heating. It's pretty hard, you'd have to throw a brick at to dint a wall. I don't think rats can chew through concrete but I could be mistaken. Re: Polystyrene walls vs Brick 18Mar 04, 2014 1:14 pm Quote: yes we are building brick veneer with R2.0 insulation in the walls and R3.5 in the ceilings + a 50mm anticon under colourbond (i'm not really clear if this has any significant insulation properties) and 2 whirlybirds. What you are having is similar to our proposed build although upstairs we are going for 75mm rendered poly as our external wall. Downstairs probably replacing standard bricks for eco brick which has a much higher thermal rating. Both levels 90mm studs, cavity and R2.0 or 2.5 batts. The anticon will definitely help keep your roof space cooler in summer as will the whirlybirds. Good choice. Yes, a 200mm cavity would mean a total wall thickness of 110 + 200 + 110 = 420mm - real good for tight suburban blocks. Ok if you're in the country on acreage. Like you allude to I'm a bit skeptical when it comes to studies and reports that don't cover all the variables - it makes me think why ? TinaG , were the blocks he used Zego ? I've seen a few homes done with them and they looked pretty good. Stewie Re: Polystyrene walls vs Brick 19Mar 05, 2014 2:14 pm I don't recall the brand sorry Stewie, they were from Melbourne I believe Render your bathroom walls, two opinions versus the one, makes you wonder. 3 6023 The spacing of the studs looks pretty large especially for a load bearing wall. 3 11059 Nope, only on the inside, I've literally has my ears to the brick outside and can't hear anything. I can sort of 'reset' the noise by pressing firmly on the studs. This… 10 11693 |