The T2 System Background

Two men from Moncton New Brunswick, Canada, Geoff Blackbeard and Charles McEwen have been experimenting and testing insulated concrete buildings for over 20 years. 

Blackbeard and McEwen met in 1981 when Blackbeard was designing an experimental concrete home to study a phenomenon known as T-Mass Effect or Thermal Mass Effect. 

Mr. McEwen, a well known and respected business man in Moncton took Blackbeard under his wing and taught him principals of physics and engineering that has had a profound effect on the direction his life has taken.  Blackbeard completed the experimental home in 1984 and has lived in it since then.  The results in comfort and energy efficiency were astounding.

Another home was constructed in 1985 for a couple in Penobsquis, N.B.  They have since sold the home, but maintain that they have never been more comfortable in their lives.

With the movement toward building homes from concrete using the typical ICF Systems coming on strong in the past 10 years, Blackbeard realized that the technology McEwen and he were involved with should be developed into a systematic approach.  The result is a system that became known as the Thermalwall Building Technology. The process has been patented in Canada and USA. 

While the amount of insulation in this methodology is comparable to the 2 sided ICF’s this technique produces a profoundly different building with benefits that cannot be achieved by having insulation on the inside of the concrete structure. The system insulates only the exterior side of the structure leaving the concrete inside the insulation layer allowing heat to be absorbed into the mass of the concrete wall. 

The affect is quite different from what most of us are used to.  The temperature in the home stays at approximately 70 degrees F or 21 degrees C all the time - day or night, winter or summer.   The building requires half as much energy to maintain the comfort level in cold periods and little or no air-conditioning. The exception being in a hot climate, where the cost of maintaining coolness would be dramatically less than other building methods. 

The fire safety associated with building with concrete is maximized because the walls cannot burn or give off smoke of any kind.  In areas where natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornados, or earthquakes are prevalent, this process of construction would be hard to beat.  As far as sound is concerned, forget about it, you can hear almost nothing inside.  The only noise you hear comes through the windows and doors.

The T2 System Business Model