Building

Thermographic surveying is a useful tool to identify where heat is being lost from a building for energy conservation. Surveys can be conducted both outside and inside the building. The right hand image below shows the roof (dark blue) is well insulated but heat is being lost through the stone walls and windows of this traditional Victorian granite built house.

Thermographic surveys can be used to detect the position of structural components such as joists or defective wall insulation, thermal bridging of external walls or roofs in industrial buildings.

Thermography can be used to detct damp or moisure ingress.

Thermograhy can assist in identfying defects in underfloor heating system

Modular Buildings

Envelope Insulation

Thermal imaging can be used to great effect to detect faults in the construction of Modular Building envelope elements i.e. Primary walls and roofs. The process will identify areas where there has been an omission of insulation, the installation of damp insulation and excessive thermal bridging. External imaging of envelopes is used primarily as a quick way of identifying potential faults whilst internal imaging enables quantification of the fault.

Fault Identification

• Air Leakage: Can often appear at joints and junctions in the building envelope and can be identified by the thermal imager as and irregular shape with uneven boundaries and large temperature variations. The advantage with Thermal Imagery is that the location of the leak can be pinpointed accurately identifying the exact location of the breach.
• Missing Insulation: If during the production phase insulation has been omitted or not installed to required standards the Thermal Imager will identify these areas and show them as regular and well defined shapes not associated with building structure features, the defective area will have a relatively even temperature distribution showing accurately the extent of the defect.
• Moisture: If during production or construction phases moisture has been allowed to enter the envelope or the envelope has been breached detection by the Thermal Imager shows these areas as a distinctive mottled pattern. Although it may not always be possible to identify the point at which the moisture has entered the envelope subsequent surveys of the surrounding areas may identify missing or insufficient insulation or breaches of the envelope by the omission of bay joint tape.

Effectiveness

Thermal imaging is particularly effective within the modular building industry in that, used in conjunction with quantitative analysis of a building by means of pressurising/depressurising to measure the leakage rate it will enable the Building manufacturer to locate the source of any leak thus enabling the manufacturer to meet overall criteria in accordance with current building regulations. Thermal Imaging can be used as a means of quality control ensuring that all insulation has been installed to the correct standard required and bay joints sealed adequately. In the event that a customer identifies a problem possibly associated with the building envelope the Thermal Imager can quickly and accurately identify those areas reducing the need for lengthy and costly intrusive examinations.