Review of co-heating test methodologies

The co-heating test

The co-heating test has been developed to assess the amount of heat that leaks through the thermal envelope of a building – the ground floor, walls, roofs and windows, etc. It is currently the only test available for assessing whole buildings and providing a measure of as-built performance. This report shows results from a programme of work designed to evaluate the reproducibility of the co-heating test. Tests were carried out on a single house by the seven separate test organisations which partnered on this project. Results varied considerably, suggesting that more work was needed to ensure that the test was an accurate predictor of as-build performance. The work considered some effects which may be contributing to the variation in test result and how these might be controlled.