With changes in council requirements, you may need to know the solar absorptance or solar reflectance ratings of our products. Solar absorptance is a measure of the amount of solar energy that passes into a material. It is defined as the ability of a material to absorb short-wave visible light. Solar reflectance conversely measures the energy that is reflected from a material.

Solar absorptance and reflectance relies on colour, no matter what material you use. Dark materials will absorb more solar energy and have a high solar absorptance and a low solar reflectance. Choosing lighter coloured bricks and roof tiles will reduce the amount of heat energy entering into your home, leading to lower energy bills and increased thermal comfort.

In the design of energy efficient buildings, the architects and consulting engineers need to be able to calculate the heat loss or gain of materials used to construct these buildings. For this reason, our product range has been categorised into three (3) colour groups, Light (L), Medium (M), Dark (D) and an index value has been given to each group to assist with engineering calculations. These categories can be used in energy efficiency verification software. The classifications of the solar absorptance and reflectance ratings are given below:

Symbol	Category	Solar Absorptance	Solar Reflectance
L	Light	< 0.475	> 0.525
M	Medium	0.475-0.70	0.525-0.30
D	Dark	> 0.7	< 0.3

Bricks and Blends

We have compiled these ratings for our Clay Brick Product Range and they are given in the table below:

Colourbrick

The solar absorptance ratings of the revolutionary new brick colouration system, Colourbrick, are given in the table below:

For more information on Sustainable Building please use the links below:

	Sustainable Building main menu
	Sustainable Design
	Thermal Mass
	A Lifetime of Benefits
	Embodied Energy
	Brochure Downloads