Weather data are used extensively by building scientists and engineers to study the performance of their designs, help compare design alternatives and ensure compliance with building regulations. Given a changing climate, there is a need to provide data for future years so that practising engineers can investigate the impact of climate change on particular designs and examine any risk the commissioning client might be exposed to. In addition, such files are of use to building scientists in developing generic solutions to problems such as elevated internal temperatures and poor thermal comfort. With the publication of the UK Climate Projections (UKCP09) such data can be created for future years up to 2080 and for various probabilistic projections of climate change by the use of a weather generator. Here, we discuss a method for the creation of future probabilistic reference years for use within thermal models. In addition, a comparison is made with the current set of future weather years based on the UKCIP02 projections. When used within a dynamic thermal simulation of a building, the internal environments created by the current set of future weather files lie within the range of the internal environments created by the probabilistic reference years generated by the weather generator. Hence, the main advantages of the weather generator are seen to lie in its potentially greater spatial resolution, its ability to inform risk analysis and that such files, unlike ones based on observed data, carry no copyright. Practical applications: The methodology presented in this article will allow academics and buildings engineers to create realistic hourly future weather files using the future climate data of UKCP09 weather generator. This will allow the creation of consistent future weather years for use in areas such as building thermal simulation.

Thermography is becoming more widely used amongst construction professionals for energy related defect detection in buildings. Until quite recently, most of the research and practical use of building thermography has centred on employing a building walk-around or walk-through methodology to detect sources of unacceptable energy use. However, thermographers are now creating new building thermography methodologies that seek to address some of the known limitations, such as camera spatial resolution, transient climatic conditions and differences in material properties. Often such limitations are misunderstood and sometimes ignored. This study presents a review of the existing literature, covering both well-established and emerging building thermography methodologies. By critically appraising techniques and observing methodology applications for specific energy related defects, a much clearer picture has been formed that will help thermographic researchers and thermographers to decide upon the best methodology for performing building thermography investigations and for the invention of new approaches. Whilst this paper shows that many of the different passive building thermography methodologies seek to address particular building issues such as defects and energy use, it has also demonstrated a lack of correlation between the different methodology types, where one methodology is often chosen over another for a particular reason, rather than making use of several methodologies to better understand building performance. Therefore this paper has identified the potential for using several passive building thermography methodologies together in a phased approach to building surveying using thermography. For example, a less costly and faster survey could be conducted to quickly identify certain defects before enabling more time consuming and expensive surveys to hone in on these with greater detail and spatial resolution if deemed necessary