Scientists develop game-changing ‘glass brick’ that could revolutionize construction: ‘The highest insulating performance’::The team of scientists developed an aerogel glass brick, which is a translucent and thermally insulating material.
Scientists develop game-changing ‘glass brick’ that could revolutionize construction: ‘The highest insulating performance’::The team of scientists developed an aerogel glass brick, which is a translucent and thermally insulating material.
I wish the article would have mentioned an R-value or at least something to describe the actual efficiency of its insulating ability.
Any time an article references another, immediately jump ship and read the original.
https://www.sci.news/othersciences/materials/aerogel-glass-brick-11848.html
For comparison: From Seves Glass Block: "Unlike standard glass blocks that have a thermal transmission coefficient "U"of 2.8 W/sq mt x K), HTI has a “U” value of 1.8 W/(sq mt x K). (https://www.sevesglassblock.com/product/191916-hti-wave-sahara-2s/). So common glass block is 2.8, fancier glass block is 1.8, and this new Aeroblock 0.053!! I think I did my numbers correctly, and DANG! I wan’t to start building walls with this stuff tomorrow!!
Also: Get the light & keep the warmth - A highly insulating, translucent aerogel glass brick for building envelopes https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352710222016060
Edit: Looks like my numbers are off, above, per @A_A@lemmy.world. Clearly, I’m neither an architect, nor a mathematician.
Anything to get rid of modern vinyl houses.
Masonry is always worth it for housing, we need to go back to building houses that’ll still be habitable a century later.
Houses generally will last a century with basic maintenance. Modern US construction techniques are a lot more thought out than is generally acknowledged.
I’m more concerned with things becoming “outdated” in aesthetic ways. A properly installed tiled bathroom (including the bath stall) can last a long, long time, but future owners might not like the look and tear it all out. Recycling it all is a laughable dream. There are designs, though, that stand up to the test of time, and we should be pushing those more.
Man.
I wish my standard of living was so high I’d think redoing a bathroom for aesthetic choices was a common run of the mill thing everybody’s just doing on a whim.
Congrats.
A quick search yields an R value of 9.6-20 per inch for already available aerogel insulating materials. So a standard exterior wall would have a 3.5"(2x4) or 5.5" (2x6) cavity giving R values of 33.6 and 52.8 respectively at the lower efficiency and cheaper options. That is better performance than pretty much any other option, but the cost is like 10-30 times that of other options.
If they are containing the aerogel granules in glass, which seems to be the case, the thermal bridging would be an issue for efficiency. A solid glass block has an R value of 1.15… A triple glazed window has an R value of 7-8.
The better option than glass block would be filling the cavity of a double glazed window with aerogel granules, which would cut down on thermal bridging to the just the sash/casing and would be more economically viable for production.