Segment 8: Thermal Bridging
Eliminating thermal bridging like we’ve done in this home prevents heat from moving through materials, which means that very little energy use for heating and cooling is required. Thermal bridging is the passage of energy from inside to outside (or vice versa) via relatively highly-conductive materials.
We must avoid the big mistakes like having a piece of steel or concrete go from inside to outside without some kind of a thermal break. And we need to make sure we have good window assemblies including thermally-interrupted frame elements. After that, we can interrupt the remaining thermal bridging (like wall studs) by installing continuous rigid insulation on the outside of the framing.
