About HeatLens

A family mission for warmer, healthier homes

HeatLens was founded in Edinburgh by Daniel and Michelle Coakley: a building energy engineer and an NHS nurse manager who have both seen what a cold, damp home costs a family.

Our story

Why we started HeatLens

Daniel has spent his career in building energy, in research, industry and consultancy. Michelle is a nurse manager with NHS Lothian, working with children with complex respiratory conditions in the community. Between us, we kept seeing the same problem from two sides.

Through Michelle's work we have seen how cold, damp and poor air quality at home affect children's health, and how much depends on a family being able to heat their home properly. Closer to home, members of our own family have lived with fuel poverty. That is why this matters so much to us.

When we retrofitted our own 1970s Edinburgh home, we received 10 heat pump quotes ranging from 5 to 10 kW for the same house, with a median of 8.5 kW. We ultimately had a 7 kW system installed. If a building energy engineer found it hard to know which answer to trust, most households have little chance. HeatLens exists to make those decisions clear, evidenced and affordable.

We are building it for our children's generation, who will grow up in the homes we retrofit today, and we want it to be available to the people who could benefit most.

Warm homes are a health issue

Cold, damp homes affect breathing, sleep and wellbeing, most of all for children, older people and anyone living with a long-term condition.

Every number should be explainable

Each figure in HeatLens shows where it came from and how confident we are in it, so homeowners, installers and landlords can check it for themselves.

Free where it matters most

Homeowners can start a project for free, and we offer free access for educational institutions and registered charities.

The team

Meet the founders

Building physics and clinical care, brought together to help people live in warmer, healthier homes.

Portrait of Dr Daniel Coakley, founder of HeatLens

Dr Daniel Coakley

Founder

PhD, MBA, CEng, MCIBSE, MASHRAE

Daniel is a chartered building services engineer who has worked on energy use, comfort and air quality in buildings throughout his career. He designed and built HeatLens, including its heat loss engine, AI document reading, retrofit scenarios and tariff models.

  • PhD from NUI Galway on calibrating detailed building energy simulation models
  • Marie Curie Research Fellow and lecturer at NUI Galway, then senior research engineer at Mitsubishi Electric R&D Centre Europe
  • Currently Sustainability Manager for Lloyds Banking Group, leading their Net Zero Energy and Carbon target delivery across their UK office and retail portfolio
  • Has run Building Energy Consultants Ltd, an independent building energy consultancy, since 2014
  • Executive MBA from the University of Edinburgh Business School
  • Took his own 1970s Edinburgh home from EPC D to A with insulation, a heat pump, solar PV and battery storage
danielcoakley.com LinkedIn
Portrait of Michelle Coakley, co-founder of HeatLens

Michelle Coakley

Co-founder, Health and Housing Advisor

Nurse manager, NHS Lothian

Michelle is a nurse manager with NHS Lothian, working with children with complex respiratory conditions in the community. She brings the clinical and human side to HeatLens, making sure what we build reflects the realities of the families it is meant to help.

  • Works with children with complex respiratory conditions in the community, including children on long-term home ventilation
  • Experience supporting older people and people with physical and intellectual disabilities
  • Works alongside councils and housing associations as an advocate for patients and their families
  • Clinical nursing research experience
What we built

Right-sizing heat pumps for the UK retrofit, end to end

HeatLens turns the slow, spreadsheet-heavy work of heat pump design into a single, guided workflow. Upload an EPC certificate, a floor plan or a site photo and our AI assistant extracts the fabric, areas and U-values, confidence-scored, for you to review. From there, room-by-room heat loss recalculates live to the CIBSE Domestic Heating Design Guide method (based on BS EN 12831-1) using UK design temperatures, so you can see where every watt is lost and why.

The platform checks existing radiators against low flow temperatures, generates retrofit scenarios with capex, SCOP and running-cost comparisons, models heat pump makes and models against flat and time-of-use tariffs, and produces client-friendly summaries and detailed installer packs. Every assumption stays visible, so you can always see how a number was reached.

HeatLens is built for the people who carry the risk and the responsibility of a retrofit: homeowners who need to trust the decision, designers and assessors who must defend their numbers, installers who have to fit it right first time, housing providers planning at scale, and the universities and training providers teaching the next generation.

Defensible calculations

CIBSE DHDG method, UK design temperatures, full breakdowns.

AI-assisted ingestion

EPCs and floor plans parsed, confidence-scored, human-reviewed.

Installer-ready reports

Emitter schedules and supporting evidence to help with your MCS paperwork.

Every assumption visible

Open workings, so you can always see how a number was reached.

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