MHC Construction exterior walls are made of 375 mm, 400 mm, or 500 mm lightweight concrete blocks. Thanks to the porous structure of lightweight concrete (containing small air bubbles), the thermal insulation capacity of lightweight concrete blocks is excellent, which makes it possible to build exterior walls entirely from lightweight concrete blocks without additional insulation. The wall structure is, in all its simplicity, moisture-resistant and, in addition to insulation, offers other thermal advantages, such as massiveness and airtightness.
Single-material
insulating solid wall
The whole design determines energy consumption, not just the wall structure’s U-value
The U-values of single-material lightweight concrete structures are typically slightly higher than those of layered block structures of the same thickness. However, the advantage of a lightweight concrete structure lies in its uniform thermal insulation capacity. This is beneficial in joints between different building elements, such as between the exterior wall and the ground floor, where the thermal bridge is smaller with single-material lightweight concrete. In an example calculation, the total energy consumption of a lightweight concrete house was lower than that of a house made from other 400 mm insulated blocks, even though the U-value of the single-material lightweight concrete block (0.19 W/m²K) is higher than that of the insulated block (0.17 W/m²K).
At the regulatory level, the building’s energy consumption is evaluated as a whole. In Finland, there are no maximum U-value requirements for structures, except for certain special spaces, such as a wall/floor of a semi-heated space, with a maximum value of 0.60 W/(m²K).
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