this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2026
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They're not wrong though. You might be thinking thermal resistance as in "can hold a blowtorch to it" in which case sure, bricks might win, but that's not the context here.
R-value measures how quickly heat transfers from one side of an object to the other, a higher number means it insulates better, or resists thermal transfer.
A 4" brick has an R value under one. It's like 0.8 or so. 1" thick plywood is already better at 1.25 or so. I think the OSB used as sheathing on the outside of wood frame houses is higher still but could be wrong there. Bricks objectively have worse numbers here
Yeah, for good termal resistance with brick you need double walls with a gap in the middle (with air is good, with thermal insulating foam is better).
That said, I (in Europe) have never seen double walls used for internal walls.
PS: Actually I just remembered that in some places the kind of brick used is not solid but actually hollow - for example and one of the differences from this to the solid kind is exactly that these have better acoustic and thermal insulation.