Improving thermal efficiency in lightweight construction: mass timber as thermal mass

This research task was established to obtain new data to inform opportunities to further improve the thermal efficiency of light-weight, timber framed, small to medium scaled buildings. The principle task of this project was to complete an empirical study assessing the measured thermal performance of mass-timber. This empirical study, within real buildings, could then be used to corroborate previous published building heating and cooling energy simulations, which had shown significant thermal performance benefit when mass-timber was substituted with standard framed systems, and concrete and clay brick thermal mass systems.