In this project test buildings were planned and constructed with different wall structures to study their thermal performance. There were six wall structures: polyurethane-insulated timber-framed structure, insulated brick wall, insulated log wall, 1.5-brick wall, siporex-block wall and normal log wall. In addition to thermal performance, the amount of heat energy exiting through outer walls was examined.
The calculated heat demand of a building (surface area of 100 m2) with insulated walls was about 37 % bigger and with non-insulated walls it was about 44 % bigger than what the measured results indicated. This is partially due to the small test buildings, their corners and surface areas, as well as the differences between the thermal conductivities of simulated and real materials, and the effects of solar radiation on the heat losses. These factors should be studied in further research. The difference between the computational and measured results increases with the radiation power of the sun, since the solar radiation on the wall surface is not considered in calculations
Research report was published in the publication series of TUT’s Department of Civil Engineering: Publication 90 (in Finnish).
The research was financed by National Technology Agency of Finland TEKES and five companies.