It's been about seven years since my company purchased our first infrared camera. Since then, we've amassed quite a collection of infrared images. We used to have one infrared camera that was shared by me and Milind, but it got too difficult to juggle one camera, so we bought a second. Those two cameras became too difficult to juggle, so we bought cameras for everyone. Today, all of the inspectors in my company have the same infrared camera, the FLIR E6, and we use our infrared cameras during home inspections as we see fit for no additional fee. This is a change that we implemented at the beginning of this year.
The things that we find and report on through the use of an infrared camera have evolved over the years, and so has our use of infrared cameras. I just finished going over all of the infrared images that my company has captured over the last year, and I've put together a compilation of common things that we use our infrared camera for during home inspections.
Verifying heat or lack thereof
The quickest way to verify airflow at heat registers throughout a home is to turn on the heat or AC and then run around the house with an IR camera about 10 minutes later. The image below shows a non-functional kitchen toe-kick heat register at a new construction inspection.
It's a snap to inspect radiators with infrared cameras. When a radiator doesn't heat up properly, part of the radiator stays cool.
Ceiling stains
Infrared cameras can be used to quickly determine whether ceiling stains are active or not. This isn't a definitive test for moisture, but when a ceiling is all the same temperature, it's highly unlikely that the ceiling is wet. In the image below, the stained portion of the ceiling was dry at the time of the inspection.
Collapsed glass
Collapsed glass is actually a new one for us. It's a condition caused by the gas between two panes of glass escaping, which pulls the two panes of glass toward each other. In extreme cases, the glass panes can actually touch each other. This is not the same thing as a failed seal. When viewed with an infrared camera, collapsed glass appears as dark blue circles or ovals in the center of the glass. We'll have a blog post about this in the near future.
Heated floors
There is no other great way to inspect heated floors.
Tiled shower leaks
We use a shower dam to test tiled showers for leaks, and we use an infrared camera below to identify the leaks before water leaks out of the ceiling... most of the time. That doesn't always happen, as some leaks are so severe that water starts pouring out before anything becomes visible with our camera, but we catch most of them first.
