An energy-efficient home is healthier and less expensive for the occupants. Changes in energy efficiency in your home can eliminate, or at least reduce, poor air quality caused by different weather conditions. One way to make your home energy efficient is to pay attention to the building materials and the layout of the property.

In Australia, bricks have been recognized for many years as a frequently chosen building material. In fact, about 90% of the houses built here are brick. Due to the drive to reduce energy consumption entirely, there are building codes nowadays that require newly built homes to be more energy efficient.

Before jumping in and hiring a masonry company like Pittsburgh, PA Brick Services, there are a few things you need to know to make an informed decision.

Think about the amount of energy that is normally used in your home. You may be surprised that so much of the energy in your home is used for cooling and heating. Kitchen use and lighting make up only a small percentage, even when combined.

Anything that can help lower your home heating and cooling bills is a good investment, right? The question, however, is whether, in your opinion, it is possible to reduce energy consumption in cooling and heating while maintaining practical thermal comfort in your home. In this case, the passive design comes into play.

The passive design processes the sun's energy to naturally enhance your home's cooling and heating. There are four fundamental principles in passive design. They are orientation, insulation, and thermal mass.

Orientation. The huge amount of glass in the northern part lets in the low winter sun. And to block out the summer sun, simple curtains are applied such as eaves.

Ventilation. When daylight saving time has passed, air is allowed to flow in and out of the house to cool it naturally. To optimize cross ventilation, both sides of the building or house have generous openings with almost negligible internal obstacles.

Insulation. Insulation in the wall and ceiling serves as an obstacle to heat transport. Insulation efficiency can be calculated from the R-value, but it does not illustrate the whole problem. Different walls may have the same R-value, but they may not work the same.

Thermal mass. Wall materials that are dense and heavy, such as bricks, absorb heat and prevent transport through the walls. As a result, temperature changes are moderate and heat absorption in summer is significantly hampered. Compared to brick walls, lightweight materials have a very low thermal mass. And because of this thermal mass, brick walls prove to be better able to temper the temperature in the home, even if they have similar R-values.

Now think about the thermal mass and look at the brick. The first two passive design techniques, namely orientation and ventilation, must be installed in the house. And your preference for household materials has a huge impact on the amount of thermal mass in a home or building. One of the easiest and cheapest ways to build thermal mass is with bricks. These stones, which are made of clay, contain a very high thermal mass. They are available to make your home well ventilated, comfortable and energy efficient.

There is research to support the idea that brick houses are energy efficient. These investigations have shown that a large part of the heat is emitted to the exterior environment through the exterior facing of the brick. Another conclusion was that in summer the temperature in a brick house was still cheap and comfortable despite the changing outside temperature.

The US Department of Energy stated that thermal mass stores heat by converting its temperature. This can be achieved by storing the heat in a warm room or by converting direct solar radiation into heat. And since brick has more thermal mass than other lightweight building materials, it is a very useful item that you can use to make your home more energy efficient.

In closing, brick is a very simple and inexpensive technique to build thermal mass in your next home. Therefore, a brick house is more energy efficient than those built with other materials.