Round Foot° Homes - Glossary of Terms

Definitions of terms used throughout the site:

Hyper-efficient:

Using materials that, by their composition, construction, and R-value, create a very energy efficient dwelling.
This used to be called “Super-insulated”, but that only brings to mind the wall cavity insulation used. Hyper-efficient refers to the whole house as a system, including wall, roof and floor insulation, efficiency of the heating plant, efficiency of the fresh air makeup apparatus, and openings efficiency. See Passivhaus energy standard for an example.
What is Passivhaus?

Low-embodied energy:

Embodied energy is the sum total of the energy necessary for an entire product lifecycle.
This lifecycle includes raw material extraction, transport, manufacture, assembly, installation, disassembly, deconstruction and/or decomposition. Something with low embodied energy contains, or uses, less total energy.

Post-industrial products:

Materials created from waste or recycled materials from industrial processes, as opposed to post-consumer:
materials created from waste or recycled items once used by consumers.

R-values:

A measure of a materials resistance to heat flow.
The most accurate measure of heat flow is for the entire system. As an example, fiberglas insulation has a stated R-value and is often used as the R-value for the wall. In practice, the gaps next to the studs and the studs themselves lower the R-value performance to a number as much as half of the stated. SIPs, constructed of solid foam, with few through foam thermal bridges (the studs), actually performs higher than the foam's stated R-value.

Site last updated on January 13, 2010

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