Thermal Bridge Impact on the Heating Demand in a Low-Energy House

Thermal bridges typically occur at the junction of different building components where it is difficult to achieve continuity in the thermal insulation layer. In this paper thermal bridges are investigated in the first one-family low-energy house in Latvia. The proportion of the overall heat loss due to thermal bridging is determined based on the results from a numerical calculation method described in the standard LVS EN ISO 10211 and from the simplified calculation method given in the standard LVS EN ISO 14683. In this paper the software tool THERM is used for two-dimensional thermal bridge model simulations. The results suggest that 7.7 % of the total heat transmission losses occur due to thermal bridges.