Missing the chance to install a heat pump in his London home had always botheredtechindustry whizz Aadil Qureshi.
Qureshi devoured tutorial after tutorial and thought to himself, Wow, OK, I get it.
This is obviously the answer.
But there was a problem.
I said, Forget it, put a gas boiler in, Qureshi recalls.
How had it come to this?
Nowhere near heat pump installation targets
Many homeowners have faced similar challenges in recent years.
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He became fixated on rectifying things as well as the industry that had let him down.
In 2022, he sought out Adam Chapman, the creator of Heat Geek, at a trade show.
Qureshi found him manning a stall set up by an energy company.
People were queuing up in their dozens to hear what he had to say.
Right off the bat, he explained his vision for scaling Heat Geek as astartupcompany.
I was floored by it, basically, recalls Chapman.
It was a Friday.
He is finally getting his heat pump.
Chapmans title is Chief Geek.
Heat Geek does not employ these people.
A total of 2,000 people have completed a Heat Geek course to date.
The information is also depersonalised by Heat Geek prior to analysis.
Heat pumps can save people money over time.
The measurement of this is called a coefficient of performance, or COP.
In this case, the COP would be 4, which is highly efficient.
Dont wait on that.
you might still save money as of today, he says.
Better technology can help on the installer side, though.
This information can be presented clearly on an iPad screen.
No one was talking about efficiency, he recalls.
I wanted to be able to offer more.
I thought, Oh, this cant be right, I shall prove him wrong, recalls Hart-Davis.
But the modelling instead validated Heat Geeks analysis, given certain conditions.
That is really surprising, says Hart-Davis.
His study is yet to be published but has been peer-reviewed andis available online as a preprint.
The fascinating details of how heat pumps work are increasingly getting lost in emotionally charged debates about them.
Heat pumps have become divisive.
They have beentargeted by the far right in election campaignsin Germany, for example.
Video niceties
The sceptics have had plenty of airtime.
The video racked up thousands of views and Chapman quickly put out a responsetearing apart Bisbys criticisms.
But then something unusual happened.
Chapman convinced Bisby to join him on multiplefollow-up videosto debate the potential of heat pumps in the UK.
For Chapman, the interaction has opened up access to a bigger audience.
We needed a Roger Bisby to argue against, he says.
Im very, very thankful to him.
Its such a monumental task, he says.
I dont think we can ever go fast enough.
Neil Simcock at Liverpool John Moores University has watched Heat Geeks development with interest.
Qureshi and Chapman cant wait to push on.
As Chapman says, It feels like now, finally, people are listening.
