Improve Thermal Bridging to Reduce Wall Thickness

Thermal bridging analysis offers a cost-effective way to achieve carbon dioxide reduction targets required by many planning authorities, as well as the fabric targets required by Part L.

We have recently helped a client reduce wall thickness from 360mm to 290mm by offering advanced thermal bridging analysis (equivalent to a U-value relaxation from 0.16 W/m²K to 0.2 W/m²K), as well as relaxing window u-values from 1.3 W/m²K to 1.5 W/m²K. This has translated into significant financial savings for our client and has helped reduce build programme.

We recommend developers create a standard set of thermally assessed details of commonly occurring junctions. These can then be issued at concept stage to architects for inclusion in designs, avoiding the need for repeat analysis.

In addition to the above, the analysis also improves overall build quality by identifying and eliminating the risk of surface condensation caused by thermal bridging.

We advise early consideration at planning stage to optimise the benefits of undertaking this cost-effective analysis.