This paper introduces an in situ measuring method for the thermal resistance of buildings, including the test chamber, measuring points' arrangement, and measurement results, in Nanjing during 2000 and 2001. Three methods for the analysis of in situ data are also presented to determine the thermal resistance of buildings although the R-values evaluated by these methods have smaller values than those of design due to the limitation of field conditions. The synthetic temperature method only requires measuring the heat flow rate on the inside surface of the building construction and both the synthetic indoor and outdoor temperatures. And the surface temperature method just requires testing the heat flow rate on the inside surface of building envelopes and both the inside and outside surface temperatures of building construction. However, the frequency response method introduced in this paper only relates to the mean synthetic indoor and outdoor temperatures and the average inside surface temperatures of the building envelopes. In other words, it is not involved with the heat flow rate, which is difficult to measure. Thus, on this point, the frequency response method is better than the other two methods to evaluate the in situ R-value of buildings. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.