Four years ago, Philadelphia architect LeRoy Landers was hired to design a building that would be framed with steel studs. He became dismayed after realizing how much the steel would reduce his walls' overall R-value. Steel studs are inherently less energy efficient than wood because they act as a thermal bridge, transferring heat from the inside surface of the wall to the outside. "I did some digging and found that while there had been a good deal of research on the subject, none of the proposed solutions, like putting foam on the outside of the wall, looked at the main culprit, which was the steel stud itself." And the solutions he found invariably added to the construction price, which can only hurt their acceptance among builders. "If something costs very much more, you've got a problem."

So Landers came up with a new steel stud design that costs about the same as a standard steel stud yet significantly lowers heat loss. Instead of lying flat against the sheathing and interior finish, the stud's edges are formed into ridges that leave the middle recessed. Since only the narrow ridges touch the wall, thermal conduction is greatly reduced.

Although still not as thermally efficient as wood framing, Landers' stud is a significant improvement over typical steel studs. Studies done at Oak Ridge National Laboratory showed that Landers' studs significantly reduced the temperature differences across the interior surface of the wall. Two variations of the stud were tested. A stud with a 1/4-in. recess improved the wall's overall R-value by 9 percent over standard steel studs; a stud with a 1/2-in. recess raised it by 16 percent.

Both variations also addressed another unwanted effect of metal framing: ghost lines caused by moisture condensing where the cold metal touches the interior wall surface in cold climates. In both cases, ghost lines were eliminated.