The Sessions#
Each session has a different focus. If you do HeatHack as four two-hour sessions:
Session 1 introduces some core concepts that affect the big decisions building operators need to make - “thermal comfort” or what makes people comfortable, is a big part of this, as is thinking about the right strategy for heating and preserving your building. The session also makes a start at collecting technical data for the building by deciding on a strategy for collecting temperature and relative humidity data as well as energy meter readings. In addition, there are some activities to help ease group members think about how their community uses their building and also about unused spaces and whether changes would bring them into occupancy.
In Session 2, the group starts thinking about what actions are appropriate to include in a future plan for their buildings. The session includes a site survey that serves to familiarise the group with aspects of the building they may never have considered and helps the group document what is known and unknown about its heating, insulation, and other features that affect energy use. The session also includes a “card game” of possible future actions that is used to quickly sketch out the basis of a future plan.
For most groups, it may take some time to make major changes, and it’s worth thinking about whether minor changes to the current heating would curb energy wastes. Most energy efficiency programmes fail to look at this, but in our experience, it’s common for the heating in community buildings to be misconfigured or have poor controls that are very wasteful. Session 3 uses the temperature monitoring data to find obvious wastes as well as help the group think about whether their users are likely to be comfortable and what they do when they are not - which often involves more waste.
Session 4 brings the planning together, looking again at the possible future actions and how to approach achieving the ones the group has chosen. Session 4 also gives time to plan how to engage with the local community, usually with a community engagement event. The event will help groups finalise their thinking, get the community behind their plans, and demonstrate to funders that the plan is right for them.
There is also a version of HeatHack for two three-hour sessions. It is similar but doesn’t get as far in planning the community engagement. It’s important for groups doing HeatHack this way to make sure that aspect of the programme doesn’t get lost as without it change doesn’t happen, so these groups do discuss that.
Need more detail?
You can read exactly what happens in the session schedules group leaders and engineers use to run the sessions.