Thermal Bridging

Applications

Only the connections that penetrate or interrupt your building envelope need a thermal break. A low-rise steel-frame building with no balconies and a flat roof will have different priority details to a mid-rise residential block with cantilevered balconies and brick veneer. The starting point is a thermal bridging assessment at the detail level, which Armatherm’s design assistance service supports. ASHRAE 90.1 requires continuous insulation across the envelope, so identifying every penetration point early in design avoids compliance issues later. Construction thermal bridge details define the specific intersections of building elements, where highly conductive materials penetrate the insulation, creating a localized pathways.

Most Armatherm products are manufactured to design specification and cut to size, so they work within standard steel and concrete connection geometries without requiring major redesign. That said, some applications such as Cast-In Situ are embedded during concrete pours, so they must be specified at the design stage. Contact Armatherm with your drawings to confirm what is feasible for a specific connection.

Yes. Reducing thermal bridging improves your building’s energy model performance in areas where insulation continuity fails, which feeds into the Energy and Atmosphere credits under LEED v4 and v4.1. Specifically, better envelope performance reduces modelled energy consumption, which is one of the primary routes to earning EA credits. Armatherm products are listed with the USGBC and the company holds USGBC membership.