 Even though the Trombe wall built in hot-summer and warm-winter zone provides more energy saving per unit wall area compared with a conventional wall in heating conditions, it displays the poorest economic performance due to the scarcest solar radiation during the heating season.• It is a user-dependent system as well that can be a liability to operate movable insulation or shutters in a daily basis.• To get the maximum performance of the Trombe wall systems built in the regions where the local users are not familiar with the system, it is important to address the locals’ adaptation problems by modeling a prototype or providing a user-friendly guideline showing the manual operation of the wall during different seasons or days.