Salford pioneers new standard for measuring home heat loss

New standards for measuring heat loss from buildings have been developed and will be implemented across Europe, helping on the road to the creation of Net Zero housing.

Two new European Standards (EN) have just been published, providing an update to current testing methods developed in a cross-EU project co-chaired by the University of Salford and Leeds Beckett University.

Professor Richard Fitton at Salford and Professor David Johnston of Leeds Beckett, jointly chaired the standard, which helps to calculate how the fabric of homes performs and whether it can meet targets for heat loss. There are stringent targets for housing, which will both save householders money but also help reduce carbon emissions from the home.

The purpose of these two new European Standards is to provide a test method (Part 1) and an analysis method (Part 2) for measuring the heat loss from a building.

The test method is applicable to both newly built and existing domestic scale detached buildings and attached domestic scale buildings, such as semi-detached houses, terraced houses and apartments. Testing at Salford involved the globally unique Energy House 2.0 chamber, containing two full sized detached houses.

It can be used to test large volume production, new housing prototypes, and can also confirm the performance of particularly significant buildings and potentially as a diagnostic tool to identify the performance of individual elements within a building and inform further investigation and action. Significant areas of heat loss withing a building can be identified and remedied.

The Standards will be implemented by the national standardisation bodies of the following 34 countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

They are:

• EN 17888 1:2024 Thermal performance of buildings — In situ testing of building test structures — Part 1: Data collection for aggregate heat loss test.
• EN 17888 2:2024 Thermal performance of buildings — In situ testing of building test structures — Part 2: Steady-state data analysis for aggregate heat loss test.