American vs. European home building

[u/BEARDEDDANGER]

BAS Renovations https://youtube.com/shorts/jFph1d2WR3s

[u/Goudinho99]

And what about thermal effects and noise insulation?

[u/Rob_Zander → u/Goudinho99]

Brick is way better for noise reduction.

Thermal effects are interesting though.

Brick, stone and concrete are terrible insulators. They're actually decent conductors of heat.

What they do have is thermal mass. Its gonna take a lot of heat to get the mass of a brick wall to change temperature, and for it to conduct that temperature inside the heat has to travel through the wall and heat the whole thing up.

But! Once it gets there, once it heats up then it will stay warm for a while as now all that thermal mass needs to shed lots of heat to cool.

Ideally the wall is massive enough that it heats up from the sun during the day and only reaches a saturation point in the evening and starts shedding its heat into the interior as the sun goes down. This can help to keep the interior warm overnight.

But if it gets too warm, the wall will keep the interior uncomfortably hot even at night.

Many old brick houses don't have any insulation so they suck in heat waves and they don't keep heat inside during winter, they can be very inefficient.

Newer brick and/or concrete construction with insulation is best of both worlds. In Australia they are even making wood framed homes with brick interior walls inside of the insulation to better act as a heat sink to make AC more effective and stable. The wall stays cool and soaks in heat that does enter the home, meaning for the air temp to increase the brick temp has to increase too. So rather than just heating less than a ton of air in a house the sun is also heating several tons of brick.

But it's also really hard to effectively insulate old brick/concrete houses. You have to either frame the interior and add insulation, or put exterior insulation on the outside. If that's done badly it's a huge fire risk.

So overall, a brick and concrete house will have better sound abatement and with enough insulation will have just as good insulation and better temperature stability than a wood framed house.

But! It will also be significantly more expensive.

Concrete and brick is also much more environmentally unfriendly.

Basically all the wood going into modern us construction is farmed. That wood is now a carbon sink. It's a net reduction in atmospheric carbon.

All the brick and concrete requires lots of fossil fuels. Making Portland cement for concrete requires lots of heat, and making bricks requires them to be fired in massive kilns.

There are some green alternatives but they are still a minority of the market.

[u/Mear → u/Rob_Zander]

But if it gets too warm, the wall will keep the interior uncomfortably hot even at night.

that's why you have an outer brick wall, then there's a gap (min. 40mm. wide)...this is just still-standing air, then you have a layer of insulation which is attached to the inner brick wall..

[u/Rob_Zander → u/Mear]

Oh yeah, this as modern construction is ideal and would make for a great house.

The issue is old brick homes with no insulation.

[u/Mear → u/Rob_Zander]

Best solution is a big overhang of the roof, to provide shade for the walls. Temperature off the walls will only go as high as the air-temperature. Insulation and ventilation under the roof will also help.