Missing thermal pathways in building simulation facade  models. (stuff we can't be bothered with)
Channel: jon.in.glasgow
Date: 2023-11-16

This is one of a series of videos about stuff that tends not be be included
in whole building simulation models.  Stuff we can’t be bothered to describe has impacts and might be a contributor to that gap between predictions  and what we can observe in buildings.

And the first architectural artefact that we find in just about every room, no matter what the building type are the inside reveals at windows and doors.  Our habit of describing facades as if they did not have thickness tends to lead us to skip over reveals.

So I take three variants of an all-to-common UK house type - one with window frames flush with the inside face of the wall, one with 100mm reveals and one with 200mm reveals and look at how that changes the volume of air in the residence, the total inside surface area and the normalised heating demands over a year.

We do a reality check to see how this compares with the omission of thermal bridge descriptions and end with a plea that we need to start a serious discussion about how we address the 3D nature of building facades.