<p>The problem of using a reliable value for the heat transfer coefficient (HTC) at the mold–metal interface for the purpose of modeling the filling and solidification inside the mold is a recurrent problem; it has been particularly crucial in permanent mold where it is the overriding factor governing the flow of heat from the casting to the mold. Numerous measurements have been made for simple geometries showing that HTC varies during the course of solidification, dropping sharply when an air gap forms at the mold–metal interface. A case rarely studied is the one when the casting is pressed against the mold by the contraction of the aluminum alloy, when the HTC increases sharply. The complexity in the phenomenon cannot be practically considered when solving the heat transfer problem so that simplified “effective’’ values of HTC are used. Since the HTC depends greatly on the mold coating practice, our conviction is that these “effective values” should be determined in-house on a wide variety of casting sizes and shape, which implies that the empirical determination of HTCs should be simple. In this paper, a method is proposed where the recordings of two thermocouples are sufficient to determine the HTCs during the filling and cooling phases of the solidification process. The method is demonstrated on the cluster of the standard ASTM B108 test bars, where HTC’s values of 550 and 1150&#xa0;Wm⁻²°C⁻¹ were determined for the filling and subsequent cooling part of the process.</p>