Masonry materials and wall assemblies, with their inherent thermal mass characteristics, provide designers with many options to achieve energy efficient designs. Architects and engineers must make new decisions to reduce their projects’ energy consumption, requiring close collaboration and coordination with building and energy codes, along with construction documents.

The energy efficiency of concrete masonry is one of the reasons it has remained the predominate building material for commercial buildings for the past 70 years.  Thermal Mass is the secret behind its energy saving attributes. Thermal Mass moderates the heat flow through a masonry wall.   

Only heavy walls made of concrete or concrete masonry possess enough “Mass” to store and release energy at different times of the day.  The “lag” between the outside air temperature and the response of the high mass wall allows for a portion of the energy that would have passed through the wall to be reabsorbed back into the outside environment.

Our continued commitment to energy savings for our clients starts with the work of the architect building energy models that not only are prescriptive to the basic compliance to code, but also to ensuring that the material use fits their R-value goals.