thermal imaging surveys

Endoscope or boroscope surveys

Damp and hidden moisture detection,

Roof leak detection & investigation

Pressure Testing / Air Leak Detection

Thermal imaging is an extremely effective technique for immediately detecting, visualising and recording temperature differences, heat loss and anomalies. The applications are numerous and varied. This page is however dedicated to heat loss from buildings caused by missing cavity wall insulation / defects and moisture ingress or damp.

Moisture is an efficient conductor of heat energy and wet insulation is in fact worse than no insulation. Heat loss from buildings can be caused by a combination of drafts from poorly fitting windows and doors and or insulation integrity. Thermography can display surface temperature variations that provide information in the underlying structure.

The thermal image below is of a new building to the left and a Victorian building to the right. External ambient temperature was 2.5 Deg C. Night time filming.

Left side had double glazed windows and a wall cavity with insulation. Right side has single glazed windows and a solid wall. Both buildings were occupied and heated. Vehicles in the foreground. See thermal profile below image.

Thermal profile along Line 1 and Line 2 on the image.

The images below show a photograph of a council house semi at the top and a thermal image of the same property below. 

This property had been recently fitted with cavity wall insulation. The white area beneath the lower right window is warm. Subsequent physical and endoscope / boroscope inspections proved that the insulation was wet. Two problems contributed to this; the window frame was in poor condition allowing water ingress and soil from the garden was too high and had breached the DPC. The right side of the semi had not been insulated at the time of inspection.

The infrared image below is a council house semi. The roof and right side had just been insulated.

This image is of a 10 storey tower block that has a number of problems associated with thermal performance.

Temperature Palette

Cold                                    warm

The blue areas are cold. This is surface damp from rain. The yellow areas are of concern since the building had just been fitted with cavity wall insulation. The windows on the upper floors are cold or black but this is simply a reflection of sky temperature. The entire building was occupied and heated.

The image above is an aerial thermal image which includes the tower block in the prior image. The enormous amount of heat from the roof indicates an insulation problem in this area also. 

The thermal image below shows high heat loss from the single glazed left upper windows. Note the heat spread below both upper windows, this is possibly water ingress or a radiator below the window.

The image below shows a house before and after insulation was fitted.

The thermal image below is an extract from a heat loss survey to pinpoint heat loss and damp. This Victorian building had been recently restored.

Windows will naturally loose most heat (red) but the thermal anomaly on the roof is either missing insulation or wet insulation. Note also the yellow heat loss around the upper windows.

Christ The Resurrection Church                                   Tabbard Street, London SE1.

Thermal Image of Church

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Most of our work is with local authorities and housing associations. Apart from using modern hand held thermal imagers for general work, we have over the years developed methods to thermally scan large numbers of houses using our vehicular unit. This is a very cost effective method to prioritise the properties that require more in depth inspections. Aerial information is extremely valuable however in fuel poverty areas, upper floors are often not heated. From an aerial perspective the building may wrongly appear to have a good thermal performance simply because it has the same roof temperature as a fully heated well insulated property. 

Many councils have appointed us to provide aerial maps of their boroughs and large scale ground data to provide comprehensive and meaningful detail of their housing stocks.

Listed below are some of our services:

Heat Loss surveys, domestic and industrial to evaluate thermal performance as part of Agenda 21 and HECA.

Cavity Wall Inspections to determine quality and type using infrared and video recording Endoscopic equipment.

Flat Roofs, infrared 'mapping' and source tracing of moisture ingress beneath roof felting or covering.

Underground Heating Pipes and water leakage detection.

Damp and moisture mapping in buildings caused by condensation, rising or penetrating damp.

Electrical Condition Monitoring, surveys of factories, power plants and HV lines.

Road & Bridge Surveys, to detect delamination and corrosion.

Land Fill Sites, to map internal combustion (aerial and ground level), leachate flow, methane gas.

Pipelines, leakages from hot or cold fluids - see Pipeline Surveys in our archive list.

Animal censusing, we have conducted numerous aerial thermal surveys over the past 24 years for the Canadian and British governments to collect data on Polar bears, Grizzly, Seals, Caribou, and Deer.