Climate
Thermal envelope design is impacted by climatic factors, including temperature, relative humidity,
retarder, its location within the thermal envelope and the position of the thermal insulation within the
envelope are influenced by climatic factors. The literature review conducted prior to the
development of the guidelines noted a definite lack of design guidance and research results
relevant to warmer climates and climates with both significant heating and cooling seasons. Much
of the previous work on thermal envelope performance has been done in Canada, which accounts
for some of this climatic imbalance. Recent efforts have attempted to address the lack of
information on warm climate thermal performance issues, but this gap is still prevalent. When
design details are presented that are appropriate to only a particular climate, this is noted.
Presentation of Details
As the design details contain the bulk of the information in these guidelines, some comment on how
these details are presented is appropriate. The details are schematic representations developed to
highlight specific design and construction issues. While they were developed to be accurate, they
are generic and not necessarily to scale. For the sake of clarity and emphasis, they do not include
every envelope element, and many of the elements that are included are drawn in the most generic
sense so as not to detract from the issues of interest. These details are not intended to be
incorporated into an envelope design, but to serve as illustrative examples of design approaches to
be used in developing the details for a given project.
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