BuildDesk U

The first thing you should know about BuildDesk U in order to save your time is that this application is developed by a company from the United Kingdom – Build Desk Ltd.

To be more precise – it only applies for that region. That is to say, this tool will be useful only for calculations to be made over the United Kingdom territory.
The name “BuildDesk U” refers to the calculation of the so called “U-Value” or, more properly said, the overall heat transfer coefficient which describes how well a building element conducts heat. That’s exactly what BuildDesk U is about.
This application is basically a collection of catalogs organized into two categories: Catalogs of building materials, and Catalogs of constructions. Besides the catalogs, the application provides an interface for the graphical depiction of the building for which you want to make the U-values calculations. The interface is rather intuitive yet full of windows which could confuse you at first.
With BuildDesk U you can calculate both, the U-Value and the temperature of the surface of almost any part of a building. BuildDesk U also performs a condensation risk analysis for the components. You will be able to see all the components involved in your calculations in 2 and 3 dimensional representations, with very realistic appearance. You also will be able to obtain printouts of the graphical representations as well as materials lists and calculations reports for U-Values and condensation risk analysis.
Besides the built-in catalogs you can add your own catalogs and building materials to update the application. Regarding system requirements, BuildDesk U has been tested to run OK on the following versions of Windows operating systems: Millennium Edition, NT 4.0 (Service Pack 5 or higher), 2000, XP, and Vista.