Urban industrial style is a hot house design trend, but it can give you headaches if you don't insulate it right. Understand the issue before you build.
One of the current trends for external colour selection currently seen on shows like The Block and in home magazines around Australia is a combination of dark metal or tiled roofs and dark walls covered with weatherboard or bricks, often combined with cathedral ceilings to give a feeling of space and air.
Fitting into either the Scandi, Urban Industrial or Urban Contemporary look, this signature look uses minimal colour palettes and architectural shapes to create impact, and is popular particularly with second storey additions or whole house renovations.
But there's a dark side to this modern design trend which can trap the unwary, and cause a lot of headaches after the build when it's too late to address the problem. It's called thermal bridging.
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What is thermal bridging
Thermal bridging is when a connection is created between a heat-conducting external element and the interior elements of the building.
We all know the difference between wearing a black vs white shirt on a hot day, and the same effect happens to your home when you have dark walls and dark roofing materials. Dark materials absorb more heat than paler ones, and that heat can be transferred into your home via the timber or metal framing.
This thermal bridge can have a big impact on the effectiveness of your insulation up to a 50% reduction in the case of a steel frame, and up to a 30% reduction for timber frames. That's a major problem in hot weather which make your chic new extension feel like an oven after a hot day, forcing you to spend a lot of money on expensive cooling systems.
