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.
The glass brick has a measured thermal conductivity of 53 mW/m*K and a compressive strength of nearly 45 MPa.”
“This is the highest insulating performance of any brick found in the technical literature, let alone on the market. Additionally, it comes with the property of light transmission.”
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I’m more concerned with things becoming “outdated” in aesthetic ways.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.
