Energy house 2.0: The design, build, commissioning, performance & early findings of a large-scale building physics test facility

The global issue of climate change is now readily accepted by most. Buildings contribute 40% of EU emissions, so the need to address mitigation is clear, but changing climate also creates a need for adaptation in buildings. Modelling is an accepted way of estimating the performance of buildings, but issues exist with accuracy and assumptions. This calls for measurements to be made on new build and retrofit homes. However, field measurements can have issues; they are time consuming, expensive, and can also be intrusive. It is for these reasons that the facilities “Salford Energy House” and “Energy House 2.0” were constructed at the University of Salford in the UK. These globally unique facilities allow for full scale homes to be built inside climatic chambers where variables such as temperature, wind, rain, solar radiation, and snow can be replicated, meaning weather conditions experienced by 95% of the worlds populated land mass can be simulated. The chambers are currently home to five structures in total; examining future housing systems, conservatories, window treatments and whole house retrofit scenarios. In this paper we will discuss the design, construction, benefits, limitations, and an overview of research findings from these facilities. Practical application This paper provides insights and learnings as to how environmental chambers shall be designed, specified, constructed and commissioned to lead to successful facilities, it gives details on some of the issues that were encountered around the energy performance gap. Also, some key learnings are delivered from the initial rounds of research on ASHP and building fabric that are useful for domestic design engineers.