ᐅ How can you bypass energy-saving regulations and avoid bureaucratic hassle?

Are you assuming that you don’t heat at night?

In that case, you can also tell by the indoor air temperature. The house as a whole doesn’t cool down as much if it is insulated. The calculation for this was just posted.
This means the wall itself is likely to cool down, which should definitely be noticeable with the thermal imaging camera.
However, the main goal is to find thermal bridges.
As far as I know, the house is heated continuously for 48 hours to “warm everything up.” This makes the thermal bridges more visible. It is also usually done in the morning to exclude external factors like sunlight.

Regards, Joe

The original poster is making a big fuss and confusing everyone with all kinds of unrelated details. And others are going along with it—thermal images, natural stone, morning and evening conditions, nights being colder than outside, the sun rising in the east...

And there are many birds by the lake. But the extension requires a building permit (planning permission), and any architect or engineer will know what is allowed and what isn’t. Like in the past, you can't just mortar a few fieldstones together or leave a fire inside anymore. Neither is allowed in a traditional log cabin, either. Whether this makes sense or not doesn’t matter; it is the law and must be followed. Karsten

matte1987 schrieb:
If you don’t want an external thermal insulation composite system, then choose a monolithic (single-material) masonry.

For example, we use a brick, a Poroton T8.
With a thickness of 36.5cm (14 inches) — which is the most common construction method here in Bavaria — it has a U-value of 0.21 W/m²*K.

So the example above is by no means made up or some kind of magic.

Anything other than this simple fact that THERE IS ALWAYS an energy balance only confuses you and is irrelevant here.

That sounds good. I’ll take a look at the different types of bricks and Poroton products available on the market and review their pros and cons.

Thank you!

By the way, when I say “natural stone,” I mean a native product—so no chemical compositions, no composite systems, etc.
In the future, I’ll use “monolithic.” (Although to me that sounds a bit too broad and could include stones that, to put it simply, consist of 1% monolith and the rest chemistry. And that’s what I want to avoid for now.)

Farilo schrieb:
Example: Suppose I have a house made of natural stone. We’re talking about one of its walls. This wall has no windows or anything!

This natural stone construction meets the energy-saving regulations without additional insulation.
In the evening, this wall would be warm/red, and during the day, cold/blue.

Beyond a certain thickness: No!

You are starting with incorrect assumptions. The natural stone wall only needs to be thick enough, then there won’t be anything warm in the evening that was cold in the morning.

The physical property behind this is heat capacity. In winter, your warm indoor air has to heat up the wall. Air has a very low heat capacity compared to the wall (calculated per volume). The wall has to absorb many times (!) the energy of the entire indoor air volume just to “reach temperature” (due to its high heat capacity).

This means you could only achieve a temperature difference between the outside surface of the wall and the room in winter with a long heating period and a significant temperature difference between outside and inside. So no warm/red in the evening.

The principle works the other way around in summer, when it’s warmer outside than inside—such a house stays cool for a long time. In winter, however, you will also have colder walls indoors compared to other wall constructions.

Such masonry “consumes” energy simply because it can absorb a huge amount due to its high mass without showing large temperature changes immediately. Traditional insulation materials are comparatively lightweight (less mass) and have poor thermal conductivity, which allows them to achieve the same effect without absorbing much energy (and thus valuable heat).

Nordlys schrieb:
The original poster is on a crusade here and just confuses everyone with all sorts of nonsense. And the slide rules get involved too. Thermal images, natural stone, morning and evening, at night it’s colder than outside, the sun rises in the east... And there are many birds by the lake. But the extension requires a building permit/planning permission, and any architect or engineer will know what is allowed and what is not. Just like before, you can’t just mortar a few fieldstones together or leave a fire burning inside. And neither is a trapper’s log cabin allowed. Whether that makes sense is irrelevant, it is the law and must be observed. Karsten

Hello Nordlys,

take it easy. Don’t get upset.

I do jump around within the topic because various users kindly reply to me. These different answers naturally lead to different threads. That can definitely be confusing. Sorry about that. But the topic is quite complex.

And sure, at the end of the day, you just go to the architect, pay, and that’s it.
Personally, I want to at least have a basic understanding of the subject. That’s what I am working on right now.

And if something isn’t 100% clear, it’s common for the questions to come across as a bit mixed up.

By the way, comments like your last one don’t help at all. On the contrary, they add significantly to the confusion.
But maybe that’s exactly what you want to achieve?

I simply read what the original facts were. An old house is supposed to get an extension, while avoiding industrial building systems and polystyrene insulation. The extension requires approval. This means a building plan, structural calculations, and an energy performance assessment are necessary. No other permits are needed. That’s how it is. Building authorities only accept submissions from authorized professionals, which are architects or engineers. It’s not possible without such a specialist. You have to spend money on that. This professional will also tell you what is feasible and what is not.

I’m not speaking without experience. We also wanted to build simply, without polystyrene and without complex technology. But we had to learn that it doesn’t work entirely without solar panels and highly efficient windows. Our house consists of 30cm (12 inches) Ytong blocks plus plaster and base coat with polystyrene bead additives, plus windows with a U-value of 0.9 (W/m²K), and an extremely thick layer of mineral wool insulation from Knauf in the roof, just barely meeting the required standards. With relatively little glazing, only one floor-to-ceiling terrace door.

Whether I like it or not, that’s just how it is, even if I doubt the usefulness of the energy-saving regulations as much as you do. These laws simply exist. That’s what I mean. Karsten