LowCarb4Real; Design collection:

Thermal bridging
What is a thermal bridge?

Types of thermal bridge

A thermal bridge is created when materials that are poorer insulators Repeating: where bridges occur following a regular pattern, such as
than surrounding materials come in contact, allowing heat to flow
that made by wall ties penetrating a cavity wall or timber studs in a
through the path created.
timber frame external wall..
Insulation adjacent to a bridge is of limited help in preventing heat loss Non-repeating: where bridges occur that are detail specific, such as
(or gain) due to thermal bridging; the bridging has to be eliminated, rethe bridging of a cavity wall by a combined lintel or at a door threshbuilt with a reduced cross-section or with materials that have better inold.
sulating properties, or with an additional insulating component (a ther- Geometric: at the junction of two or more planes, such as at the
mal break).
corner of an external wall or at the eaves.

Geometric thermal bridges

Repeating thermal bridges

With a higher level of insulation, the relative importance of thermal bridges increases in the energy balance. With this in mind, repeating thermal bridges which
may have been acceptable in the past need to be designed out to achieve the energy performance standards required in todays lower carbon emission dwellings.
Timber studwork in standard timber frame construction, and in pre-manufactured
insulated panels (left), may create repeating thermal bridges that will need to be designed out; most commonly by the addition of a supplementary layer of insulation.
At Stamford Brook (right), traditional stainless
steel wall-ties would have significantly increased the heat loss through the masonrycavity external walls, effectively bypassing
much of the 142mm of retro-filled blownfibre insulation. The use of Kristiansen RefusI
250mm glass-filled thermoplastic polyester
wall-ties (with a thermal transmittance well
below that of steel) went some way to reducing the repeating thermal bridging.

Non-repeating thermal bridges

SAP Table K1 value for
combined lintel:
= 0.30 W/mK
Original separate lintel
design at Stamford Brook
= 0.016 W/mK

Steel toe added to inner leaf

lintel

Compromise 42mm gap:

= 0.068 W/mK

Worst case, 20mm gap:

= 0.18 W/mK

Non-repeating thermal bridges are intermittent and often caused by discontinuities in the designed thermal envelope. These may be constructive or material thermal bridges, frequently observed around openings and other instances where materials of different thermal conductivities form the external
envelope.
Thermal bridges can be quantified by calculating the linear thermal transmittance (-value), measured in W/mK. This is the additional heat loss (or gain)
through the building envelope per metre length of that detail, and can be calculate by using software such as the freely available THERM package from
LBNL (http://windows.lbl.gov/software/therm/therm.html) and the resultant values fed
back into SAP to establish the DER rather than use the default values for accredited construction details (see left).
Design changes, whether in the design or construction phases need to be reviewed and thermal bridging re-calculate to avoid potential problems (below).
In more extreme cases thermal bridging can significantly increase the risk of
surface or interstitial condensation and promote mould growth.

These can be either 2dimensional (where 2 planes

intersect) or 3-dimensional
(at the junction of 3 or more
planes).
Geometric thermal bridges
are due to the shape of the
building or, more specifically, due to the shape of the thermal
envelope. An increase in the complexity of the building
geometry is liable to increase the occurrence of junctions that
display a degree of geometric thermal bridging.
3-D junctions offer a level of complexity that is often difficult
to visualise from 2-D drawings alone and frequently require
changes in material as well as in direction.
Designs must ensure that such issues are not left to site
operatives to solve but are
addressed fully at the design
stage, considering such
concerns as continuity of
insulation, buildability, build
sequence and procedural
issues.

When calculating heat loss from a dwelling, variations

between as-designed and as-built details can have a
significant on the overall result.
The example illustrated here
shows the difference made by
omission of the intermediate
floor perimeter insulation in a
timber framed dwelling.
Thermal bridge at the Stamford Brook bay window head, the design included an insu- Designs need to ensure that
lated head liner which was omitted in the construction phase for aesthetic reasons.
the likelihood of such errors occurring are minimised.

Rules to assist in the avoidance of thermal bridging

Design Rule

Description

Prevention Rule

Where possible, do not interrupt the thermal envelope.

Penetration Rule

Where an interrupted insulating layer is unavoidable, thermal

resistance in the insulation plane should be as high as possible.

Junction Rule

At building element junctions, insulating layers should meet without any

gaps. Insulating layers should join without interruption or misalignment.

Geometry Rule

Design edges to have as obtuse angles as possible.

Adapted from CEPHEUS (Cost Efficient Passive Houses as European Standards) - Projectinformation No. 36 (Feist, Peper & Gorg, 2001).

UrbanBuzz ProjectDeveloping Low Carbon Housing: Lessons from The FieldLowCarb4Real

Lead Organisations: Leeds Metropolitan University and University College London
Project Partners: Good Homes Alliance, National Trust, Taylor Wimpey, Redrow, University of Leeds.
Contacts: Prof. Malcolm Bell, Leeds Metropolitan University (m.bell@leedsmet.ac.uk), Prof. Bob Lowe, Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, UCL (robert.lowe@ucl.ac.uk)