Currently, the 2nd most typical building system for houses in the US (after conventional wood framing) is concrete masonry unit (CMU) construction. Usually, concrete blocks have 2 or 3 cores that are separated by webs. The blocks are stacked, usually with mortar between your layers. Block walls are occasionally reinforced with wire mesh and rebar, plus some of the cores are usually full of poured concrete.
Perlite or another kind of insulation might be poured or foamed to the hollow CMU cores to enhance the insulating properties of the walls, even though thermal bridging with the block edges and webs is significant. The power performance of concrete masonry construction, despite insulated block, is rather poor.
Concrete's thermal mass could be a significant benefit in moderate climates in which the outside temperature fluctuates widely above and below the interior temperature, for example in the southwestern US. In these climates, a masonry wall may have a mass-enhanced or effective R-value that is greater than the rated R-value.
Another building system gathering popularity and share of the market in North America is insulated concrete form (ICF) construction. ICFs are often produced from expanded polystyrene (EPS) insulation. The lightweight forms are stacked and reinforced, and then the cores are full of concrete, which cures to supply the structural wall system.
ICFs can be utilized simply for foundation walls, or the home walls as well. Some ICFs have polystyrene walls as much as 2-1/2 inches thick, providing a wall system by having an average insulating value up to R-25.
There are a variety of alternative ICF materials with significant environmental features. One product is really a composite of recycled polystyrene beads and cement; two other medication is composites of wood fiber and cement. Although these alternative materials are more structural than polystyrene ICFs, their cores must be full of concrete.
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