Clay brick's mineral properties and natural intrinsic qualities define the performance benchmarks

摘要

Research in the USA, Australia and South Africa continues to present the many reasons why clay brick construction, so widely applied in South Africa for house construction, deserves its pre-eminent status in sustainable house construction. The Empirical research findings, a product of 8 years of study at the University of Newcastle's Priority Research Centre for Energy - where building modules comprising different Australian wall construction types were continually measured, under real life conditions, with measurements taken under both free floating and controlled internal conditions, has comprehensively shown: Insulated lightweight building (high thermal resistance [R-value] with no thermal mass in the walls) as the worst performing in all seasons. Brick veneer (brick applied to the external skin of the external wall) performed better than the lightweight. Insulated cavity brick performed the best.