Andy Walker explains U Values - a measure of how good different materials are at conducting heat.
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- Опубліковано 7 вер 2024
- Every surface in a house, indeed every material, has a different ability to allow heat to pass through it. Some materials are very good conductors of heat, metals for example, whilst other materials are very good at blocking the flow of heat eg. insulation.
When making a Whole House Energy Review its important to look for the thermal weak spots. The first part of this work is to identify the actual boundary between heated space and unheated space. This is not always where you think it is.
Then assumptions must be made about the materials that have been used to build up the surface. Forexample the external wall of a house will typically have an outer leaf made of stone or brick, a cavity of some kind, and then an inner leaf made of stone, bricks or composite blocks. Then there's likely to be some kind of surface finish like a plaster skim.
Each element of the wall will have a different thermal conductivity associated with it and that coupled with the thickness of each layer gives us a measure of how much heat energy will flow through the wall for a fixed temperature difference between inside and outside.
This quantity is called the 'U Value' and is a crucial way of describing the performance of each surface in your house. It is then possible to quickly see what the improvement would be by upgrading the insulation on the wall, window or door - and directly calculate the reduction in heat energy lost.
Knowing the U Value of typical elements in a house is a fundamental starting point to making a thermal assessment of a home.
Brilliant explanation. Thank you
Simplist, clearest, quickest explanation of u values I've seen. Thanks.
Very informative. Just the brake down that I needed. Cheers
Thanks Reece .. it was the simplest way i could visualise the process for myself. I'm glad its helping some other people.
Very Helpful video, thank you for being very clear.
Glad it was helpful! I've given this explanation to many people and had a good response. It does seem to give a bit of clarity to a less well understood topic.
Brilliant a great tutorial on U values
Very few joiners or housebuilders have any real respect for insulation and seem to totally disregard the importance of a quality installation. People are just now focussed on the energy performance of the houses where they are more concerned about how the windows look! It is all wrong.
This is sadly very true KS .. the vast majority of 'traditional builders' (the politest term I can think of) are only interested in doing what they've always done .. ie a cheap, fast, untidy job and then run off with their money .. A complete shift is needed in both training and motivation to enable the UK to have high-specification, high-quality insulation installations which are fit for purpose - otherwise the UK will never achieve net zero carbon by 2030, 2050 or indeed any date in the future ..