R-value (insulation) typical straw bale houses have very thick walls and thus are well insulated. Snow is roughly R-1 per inch. Brick has a very poor insulating ability at a mere R-0.2 per inch; however it does have a relatively good thermal mass. Note that the above examples all use the U.S. (non-SI) definition for R-value. When determining the overall thermal resistance of a building assembly such as a wall or roof, the insulating effect of the surface air film is added to the thermal resistance of the other materials. In practice the above surface values are used for floors, ceilings, and
History of construction History of construction The History of construction overlaps many other fields like structural engineering and relies on other branches of science like archaeology, history and architecture to investigate how the builders lived and recorded their accomplishments. Those fields allow us to analyse constructed buildings and other structures built since prehistory, the tools used and the different uses of building materials. History of building is evolving by different trends in time, marked by few key principles : durability of the materials used, the increasing of height and span, the degree of control exercised over the interior environment and finally the energy