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Thermally Isolated Connectors and Reinforcements

Thermally-isolated connectors are specialized components that reinforce and/or connect assemblies making up the envelope or exterior structure of a home while preventing the transfer of heat from one assembly to another or simply conducting heat far more slowly that conventional materials we commonly use.

Reinforcements are elements within these assemblies that may quickly transfer a large amount of heat. For example, steel conducts heat very well, so steel reinforcing bars in concrete (“rebar”) can transfer heat far more quickly than the surrounding concrete. Alternative reinforcing materials will conduct heat slower. In some cases slower than the concrete they reinforce.

Connectors are commonly selected for their high strength. Thus, steel is a common connector for both heavy and light building assemblies. Thermally-isolating connectors provide strength, but conduct heat from one building assembly to another slower than conventional connectors.

To reduce winter heat loss or summer heat gain, it’s best to use low heat conductivity materials to reinforce assemblies where they join—and similarly, low heat-conductivity materials to connect two assemblies.

A typical application would be joining a basement floor to a basement wall. For example, the basement wall may be insulated on the inside, but the concrete basement wall is as cold as the surrounding earth or air. The basement floor may have sub-slab insulation thermally isolating it from the cold soil underneath it. If you connect the warm basement concrete floor with the cold basement wall with steel rebar, the heat will flow out from the floor to the wall through the rebar as if it were a pipeline for heat transfer.

Another example is when concrete floors extend under the exterior wall to form a balcony. On cold winter days the warmth of the floor of an apartment or home flows to the ice-cold concrete balcony. This is because heat is always conducted through objects from warmer portions to colder portions. And in the summer unwanted heat flows back into an air-conditioned apartment through a concrete floor as the sun heats the concrete balcony. Pulling the shades on a window or glass door to the balcony will block some of the sun’s heat, but it will not prevent the heat from migrating through the concrete to warm the floor—and thus the apartment or home.

When materials with high heat conductivity such as aluminum, steel, and concrete are not thermally separated or “isolated" from each other by less-conductive materials, substantial heat loss occurs in winter and heat gain in summer.

Thermally Isolated Connectors and Reinforcements

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