This paper presented a novel analytical method for the performance evaluation of various rural houses space heating systems and determination of the most appropriate system type, on the basis of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation (FCE) methods. To initiate the system performance evaluation, a number of parametrical indexes, including three primary indexes namely, social benefit, environmental benefit and economic benefit, and nine secondary indexes namely, room temperature qualified rate, heating system reliability, smoke concentration, SO2 concentration, NO, concentration, energy consumption, initial investment, operational costs and policy incentives, were developed by running a dedicated specialists' questionnaire. These indexes were then applied to the performance assessment of the selected five rural houses space heating systems, i.e., hybrid solar/biomass boiler, biomass boiler, air source heat pump, hybrid solar/electrical heating and coal-fired boiler. As a result, the weights of different indexes for the five systems were determined using the AHP method and consequently, the priority order of the five systems was listed using FCE. The modelling results indicated that among the five selected systems, solar/biomass heating system presented the best performance, followed by the biomass boiler type, air source heat pump type, solar/electrical heating type, and coal-fired boiler type. The novelty of the research lies in the combined use of the AHP and FCE methods for solving the complex multi-factors inclusive equations. This combination can overcome the AHP's shortfall in subjective selection of the indicators, and meanwhile, prevent the FCE's drawback of ignoring the weights of the indexes, thus providing a realistic and effective method for selection of the best performing rural house space heating system. Wide deployment of research outcomes can help improve the living standard of the residents staying in wide range of rural areas in China and thus harvest greater social, environmental and economic benefits subsequently. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.