Building a home

[dannubis]

With those values you are safe... Good green boy...

And regarding the wood: i quite like it. Stone isn't used that much up north because you can't build with bricks in freezing temperatures. Its big advantage however is maintenance. Once bricks are up they stays up. Wood can be eaten, rot, ...

[onodera]

What are these walls called, Asher? I see it's not solid wood, but can't determine its actual composition..

[Asher]

What are these walls called, Asher? I see it's not solid wood, but can't determine its actual composition..

The final walls will be vinyl siding:


In the current pictures, it's just plywood(? not sure though) with gypsum board over that (on the sides only), then with homewrap over it.

[onodera]

In the current pictures, it's just plywood(? not sure though) with gypsum board over that (on the sides only), then with homewrap over it.

So they build the uh, skeleton, out of timber and join the pillars with plywood? What goes between two plywood sheets, mineral wool?

[Asher]

They call it the frame.

Between the sheets goes fibreglass insulation:

[Krill]

They call it the frame.

Between the sheets goes fibreglass insulation:

Is that it? They use the same thing in brick buildings. I'd have thought they'd have used something more effective with the colder Canadian weather.

[Asher]

There's different grades of fibreglass.

Brick is actually a worse insulator, by a good margin.

R value per square inch:

.2 Brick
1 Wood
3 Fiberglass or cellulose
4 compressed fiberglass
5 Styrene
7 polyisocyanurate

Warmer areas of Canada have lots of brick houses (like Toronto). They're incredibly rare here where it gets colder. And usually they're very old.

[Krill]

There are different types of brink...

[Asher]

And they're all worse.

Woods range from 0.8 (hard wood) to 1.4 (soft wood). I've not seen a brick rated higher than 0.7.

[Krill]

Where'd you get those values?

And god I hate not being able to tab-enter to post.

[Asher]

Similarly, it takes 12 feet of concrete to equal the insulation effectiveness of 1" of wood (source: forum! http://hvac-talk.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=95788)

[Asher]

Where'd you get those values?

And god I hate not being able to tab-enter to post.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-value_%28insulation%29#Typical_per-unit-thickness_R-values_for_material

Wood Sheathing (what is on the house...) is actually R2.5.

Brick is 0.2 (you want the middle column in the table)

[Asher]

Fact: Snow is five times as effective as brick as an insulator. (1 vs 0.2)

[Krill]

So...another forum? The links in that thread don't work. I do note though that the claim there is a concrete block has an R value over 1.

[Asher]

Source is wikipedia.

Vacuum insulated panels have the highest R-value (approximately R–45 per inch in American customary units); aerogel has the next highest R-value (about R–10-30 per inch), followed by isocyanurate and phenolic foam insulations with, R–8.3 and R–7 per inch, respectively. They are followed closely by polyurethane and polystyrene insulation at roughly R–6 and R–5 per inch. Loose cellulose, fiberglass (both blown and in batts), and rock wool (both blown and in batts) all possess an R-value of roughly R–-2.5 to R–-4 per inch. Straw bales perform at about R–1.5. However, typical straw bale houses have very thick walls and thus are well insulated. Snow is roughly R–1. Brick has a very bad insulative ability at a mere R–0.2, however it does have a good Thermal mass.