Whilst doing today another random thought lodged itself.

Is there any thermal benefit to either a solid concrete lintel or a steel box lintel in the inner leaf of an insulated cavity wall?

My google searching keeps turning up entries pertaining to thermal bridging across the cavity, but I haven't yet come across anything comparing thermal properties for the two in a single leaf.

 

Anyone have any thoughts or views on this?

 

 

 

The important thing is the insulation in the cavity, not bridging it. The lintel itself is all but irrelevant, an I beam web could be insulated a bit. A “normal‘  lintel Introduces rotten thermal bridges. These can with good design (check lintels etc) be mitigated.

 

i used separate lintels on my inside and outside skins and designed out thermal bridging. 
 

what are you thinking about this for?   

I'm about to put together an order for quite a few lintels for the rest of my inner leaf.  Any real difference between the two types will affect my choices.

 

This info states that Concrete lintels can offer significantly superior thermal properties compared to Steel:

 

https://www.stressline.net/steel-vs-concrete-lintels-7-reasons-to-consider-concrete/

 

FYI - Thermally broken cavity lintels are now available.

Your lintels are only supporting the inner leaf so just go for whatever is cheapest and easy to fit.  It is concrete block so I would go concrete lintel.

3 hours ago, wozza said:

This info states that Concrete lintels can offer significantly superior thermal properties compared to Steel:

 

https://www.stressline.net/steel-vs-concrete-lintels-7-reasons-to-consider-concrete/

 

FYI - Thermally broken cavity lintels are now available.

 

 

This is one of the things I came across when googling earlier. Where a lintel bridges a cavity I can see the benefit of thermally breaking the lintel.  All of my openings are thermally broken at the lintel. All of the inner leaf lintels are single leaf only.

 

4 hours ago, Mr Punter said:

Your lintels are only supporting the inner leaf so just go for whatever is cheapest and easy to fit.  It is concrete block so I would go concrete lintel.

 

Up to now I've put concrete in the internal walls and insulated box lintels in the inner leaf of the external walls. The externals have either been CN71 catnic or brick arches.

 

The wondering about either having a benefit over the other was just something I thought about whilst measuring up earlier. If it doesn't make much difference either way i'll continue as before.