HeatHack is a small Scottish charity established in 2025, but it has been around less formally since 2009. It arose when a property volunteer needed to solve some tricky problems at an Edinburgh church. She and volunteer engineers got together to diagnose what was wrong with the heating first there and then in other community buildings, and for a long time this is how we operated, one building at a time with the occasional public event. When we needed diagnostic equipment like pipework temperature monitors that we couldn’t afford, or data sent automatically to the internet, we built what we needed and shared it around. Over time, we found a fascinating series of problems – heating controls that were wasteful and badly suited to the buildings and the people in them, a lack of understanding about what makes people comfortable in older buildings especially if they aren’t in good use, critical maintenance problems that were being ignored, requirements for adaptations to fit changing community needs, and workers that weren’t being held to account through lack of snagging expertise.
HeatHack exists to support the people who run these essential buildings, many of whom are untrained volunteers. We understand buildings and heating, but we also understand people. We devise programmes, techniques, and services that community groups can use to think about how they can improve how they operate, whether they are motivated to reduce their costs, save the planet, increase their occupancy, or make the building comfortable. Past groups have told us that we have saved them from closure by forestalling the need to have an emergency boiler replacement, reduced their energy use by up to a third, helped them choose a more appropriate type of heating or professionals and suppliers who will give them the right service, and given them compelling visions that worked for obtaining grants. We currently work with individual community groups to understand the issues they face, and then design more general resources that will help the wider sector, working with partners who support these groups in their local regions to increase our reach. Once we are confident we have a useful resource, we release it freely for anyone to use in any way they see fit, as long as they credit us and similarly share any changes they make.