Written for students, architects and researchers, this volume reviews the current House Rating Schemes (HRS) used in countries across the globe. The text explores various approaches for rating buildings on the basis of different indexes, with implications for both energy efficiency and thermal comfort.

"House Rating Schemes" provides information to students, architects and researchers in the field of the built environment. It reviews current House Rating Schemes (HRS) used in different countries and investigates how these schemes assess the thermal performance of a house. It challenges the way that these schemes assess building energy efficiency and their inability to evaluate free running buildings which do not need an energy load for heating and cooling indoor environments. Finally, the book proposes a new index and method for HRS in which the efficiency of a house design can be...