Brick Color’s Heat Absorption: Science Experiment

The next science experiment my children did (see previous experiment) was to test the heat absorbing quality of bricks. Paper is thin and doesn’t have a large thermal mass – but bricks are thick and heavy. Would a dark brick be different compared with a light brick.

The experiment involved little towers of half a dozen bricks with the Thermocron temperature logger in the middle. Holes in bricks were filled with foam to stop air-flow. And they were left in piles throughout the back yard.

And the answer was “yes”.

In fact, the bricks experienced the same range of temperatures as the paper.  That is, a dark brick can reach temperatures over 15° warmer than ambient, and that’s in the middle of winter.

So the consequences are huge. A dark bricked house will be much warmer than a light coloured house. A dark tiled roof will be hotter than a light tiled roof.

In my next blog, I ask the question “does it matter?”