New guide for prevention of thermal bridging in commercial buildings

Morrison Hershfield has announced that the Building Envelope Thermal Bridging Guide – Analysis, Applications, and Insights is now public and can be downloaded from BC Hydro. The guide aims to overcome obstacles confronting the industry with respect to mitigating thermal bridging to reduce energy consumption in buildings.

The guide was developed by Morrison Hershfield in collaboration with co-sponsors and industry partners.  Co-sponsors include BC Hydro Power Smart, Canadian Wood Council, Fortis BC, FPInnovations, and Homeowner Protection Office. Industry partners helped extend the scope of the guide to include many additional details.

The principle goal of these collaborating organizations is to promote energy-efficiency in buildings by increasing awareness of the impact of and methods to mitigate thermal bridging. To meet these goals, the guide addresses a number of obstacles currently confronting our industry by:

• Cataloging the thermal performance of common building envelope assemblies and interface details.

• Providing data-driven guidance that will make it easier for the industry to comprehensively consider thermal bridging in building codes and bylaws, design, and whole building energy simulations.

• Examining the costs associated with improving the thermal performance of opaque building envelope assemblies and interface details, and forecasting the energy impact for several building types and climates.

• Evaluating the cost effectiveness of improving the building envelope through more thermally efficient assemblies, interface details, and varying insulation levels.

• The guide, which is broken into three main sections for ease of use, contains helpful information for technical committees for energy standards, regulators, utilities, architects, mechanical designers, building envelope consultants, energy modellers, developers, manufacturers and trade organizations.  

The guide outlines how to effectively account for thermal bridging and is backed up by an extensive catalogue of thermal performance data. This information is essential for practitioners evaluating building envelope thermal performance.

Researchers and regulators will be interested in the sections focused on market transformation, which includes an evaluation of cost effectiveness and energy savings in common large building types.