HeatHack helps the people who run community buildings think about the big picture when it comes to making the best use of their building and the energy they use to heat it. We work with all kinds of community buildings, including village halls, churches and heritage buildings, sports clubs, and many more.
The HeatHack Programme
We provide a schedule of small group sessions that groups can run. It will help them understand their building and come to agreement about what changes to make in it that will serve their mission, ensure they are financially sustainable, and use energy wisely. The programme uses activities and games to bring the community to an agreed high level plan and story about what they want to do and why, a key part of attracting grant funding. It covers everything from checking your heating controls to full retrofit, including ways of heating that don’t rely on keeping warm air in a leaky building. The programme is free, with printed materials including a card game available as source files or by post at cost.
Workshops
We offer training workshops for people who run community buildings. In the workshops, we dispel the main misconceptions community groups have that lead to them wasting energy, explain the major choices that have to reduce waste, and show techniques that can help groups make their best decisions. These are typically organised by church networks, Climate Action Networks, Councils, and Third Sector Interfaces on behalf of their local communities.
Heating Controls Checks
For groups who expect to be using gas boilers for at least three more years, we can help them monitor the temperature and relative humidity in their building, review their controls, and think about whether a change either to the settings or to the controls themselves would save energy. This is work we piloted with 7 Glasgow churches thanks to the Glasgow City Heritage Trust and now working to roll out more widely. We do this via site visits for venues within a reasonable distance of Edinburgh, and are working on ways to deliver this elsewhere.
Office Hours
Anyone using our services, including the free on-line materials, can book a discussion with Jean, who developed our activities, using her online calendar. We’ll tell you how you can make a donation but never press you for one.
We are happy to consider whatever you need to make your involvement in a success. Past groups have asked us to facilitate their programme sessions, check their thinking, take them through consultancy reports, and help them find the right kinds of professionals to take their plans. Please ask. We exist to look for solutions for the things that block you from making change.
Winner of the Church Times Green Champion Award 2024
