THERMAL BRIDGING AND MOULD

An explanation of one of the 5 Passive House principles: thermal bridge free construction.

The natural movement of heat is to follow a path of least resistance and flow from hot areas to cold areas. A thermal bridge is an area of an object where heat can sing and dance its way straight outdoors. And what do we say that? Hell no! We are spending a lot of money on beautiful environments for ourselves and our kids, and we want to control that heat! We want to run around in our underwear and dance with the heat. 

If the heat is escaping to the outdoors, the temperature of the interior surface is lower. When this surface gets cold enough, condensation and moisture build up. Yuck! that means that this design flaw is the reason for mould build-up - An inevitable outcome for a scary-high portion of houses built in NZ at this very moment!

Doom and gloom… Woah, hold on! There’s a simple way to avoid all this mould and moisture:

Designing and using products that utilise the practice of thermal bridge free design.

A higher level of thermal protection will generally lead to higher surface temperatures, including near thermal bridges. Therefore, high energy-efficient homes are less problematic.