Energy-Efficiency of Facing Bricks in Commercial Buildings
If there’s one thing everyone can agree on, it’s that the UK’s weather is unpredictable.
The summer months can bring unusually cold temperatures, and, conversely, we can experience warmer days when the winter rolls around.
As a building material, bricks offer far greater heat retention and resistance than other structural materials like steel, stone, and concrete. Common bricks were wholly embraced by the UK construction and manufacturing industries because they could retain heat for longer within buildings while the weather was cold.
Nowadays, with so much talk of environmental friendliness in the fight to reduce climate change and attempts to preserve our planet’s finite resources, everyone is adopting more conscious attitudes and approaches towards their energy usage.
As brick suppliers working with a wide range of brick manufacturing companies, we’re no strangers to the question: “are bricks energy-efficient and good for the environment? In response to that, we’ve created this short guide.
Why Energy Efficiency Matters
Put simply, the less energy used in manufacturing and supplying materials, the fewer non-renewable resources and fossil fuels are used.
Having a commercial brick structure that is energy-efficient is better for the environment and more cost-effective. Depending on the chosen energy supplier, using more gas and electricity to regulate temperatures inside the building can increase your usage of fossil fuels. Considering the current wholesale energy prices in the UK, many are keeping a close eye on this.
Therefore, to use less energy and be more environmentally and economically conscious, your building will need to take advantage of smart, high-quality insulation, double glazing and more to reserve energy as much as possible.
That said, using facing bricks is a huge part of the equation too.
Are UK Bricks Energy-Efficient?
When you’re planning the exterior design and scale of your building, don’t just think about the aesthetic quality of the brickwork.
As said earlier, clay bricks offer far greater energy-saving benefits than other commonly-used building materials.
Buildings made from clay facing bricks retain heat for far longer than those built from timber, concrete, stone and others. If you were to turn the heating on in a brick building, the heat would permeate and stay for longer than in a building made from any other material. If it’s warmer outside, the inside will stay cooler for longer with minimal heat from the outside making its way into the building.
The excellent physical properties of brick help any building built from this material to naturally stay warmer or cooler, depending on the weather outside. This is the same whether you use standard red facing bricks and blocks, or derivatives like handmade bricks, wirecut bricks, stock bricks, glazed bricks, long format bricks, etc.
A large contributor to bricks’ excellent performance is due to their thermal mass.
Thermal Mass
This refers to the capacity of a material to absorb and retain heat energy where there’s a temperature disparity (in other words, when hot meets cold or vice versa).
The higher the thermal mass, the longer the lag time (i.e. the time it takes for heat to pass through an external wall). As far as facing or engineering bricks are concerned, that lag time is quite long, where cavity walls will retain heat for a good few hours before it completely dissipates.
For walls using brick slips (also known as brick tiles or veneer bricks), the time is reduced slightly. That said, heat is still retained longer than with other materials and more artificial energy is needed.
Embodied Energy
Bricks’ energy-efficiency is also impacted by what’s known as embodied energy, which refers to energy required during the brick manufacturing process. This can therefore be attributed towards the finished products’ overall energy usage.
While bricks will always retain some embodied energy from the manufacturing process, they are still significantly more energy-efficient than other materials.
Brick manufacturing only counts for a small percentage of their lifetime energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The majority of these emissions are from day-to-day use.