It is bubble wrap with a layer of foil in a covering of poly. If taped,
it
tends to make the place more air-tight giving the impression of superior
insulation.

Well, the fact that it is applied in such a manner is actually a selling
point. It is very difficult to cut Celotex/Kingspan and wedge it in without
lots of gaps that promote leakage. Rockwool isn't quite so bad, but a lot of
rigid board installations are badly done, with rough sawn boards with large
gaps, often unfilled with squirty foam.

There is no testing model to explain, which is good enough. After all this
time you would have thought they could have done tests on an Actis Triso9
house and an identical house without Actis with 200mm of insulatiion in
the walls. If there was a clear difference I'm sure they would be crowing
from the rooftops with all data printed and freely given out.

They have. Have you read the BM Trada report? Not the little certificate,
but the one explaining what they did?

So, far it is a case of it doesn't work until reliable meaningful
independent test data is produced on houses in cold climates.

They performed tests in High Wycombe and France. They used the data to
refine their prediction model. Whilst High Wycombe isn't exactly the coldest
place in the country, it is close enough to Reading to give perfectly
acceptable results for my purposes!

BM Trada is not some fly-by-night company giving out certificates for 20
quid and a blow job. They are a very respected company with all the UKAS
certs you can get.

I can't find the details for Super 9 at the moment. However, a similar
methodology was used for the Super 10.

http://www.tri-isosuper10.co.uk/docs...ada%20Cert.pdf

This details how the test chalets were constructed and tested is here and
how the data collected was used to fine tune a model that allowed predictive
comparisons to be made for various weather conditions and locations. The
comparisons were then made for many UK locations to give the average compari
son of 210mm for the Tri-iso Super 10. (My recollection is that Tri-iso
Super 9 had slightly lower performance).

These tests were conducted by a credible and independent testing company on
the premises of that credible and independent testing company.

So, two identical houses both air-tight to the same levels, one with
200mm of Rockwool one with Triso9. Then test the houses using
meangfull recorded data. Simple isn't it?

Very simple. And exactly what they did.

Christian.