Top Issues Detected through Thermal Camera during Home Inspection
Why do I need a home inspection? 

Buying a home is one of the biggest investments you will make throughout your lifetime. Before you purchase any property, you must always learn as much as you can about it before purchasing. With inspection, you can know about all the costly repairs that need to be performed and this will ultimately trim down any expensive surprises and home problems. Through inspection, you get an idea about all the positive aspects of the building as well as the inspection team will provide you maintenance tips to keep your new home in good condition. A proper report will be provided to you by the home inspection team and that will help you make your decision of buying the property.

Likewise, if you are the seller selling your house then with the home inspection you can get to know the problems with your building structure before listing your property. It will allow you to make repairs which will make the home more appealing to buyers.

If you have owned your home for a long time, a home inspection is also a good idea. It will help you find problems in the early stages so that you can avoid more severe problems that will prove to be more expensive later.

Best Home Inspection technique

There are many ways to inspect your home but home inspection using thermal imaging is the latest and most advanced technique. One of the most important tools today used in every inspection is the infrared thermal imaging camera.

What is an Infrared Thermal Imaging Camera?

Thermal imaging cameras scan a particular area of a building to provide a picture of the distribution of temperature around the surface. Using electromagnetic waves, they do this. Our eyes can detect visible light from the electromagnetic spectrum, but thermal cameras can detect additional light from the spectrum of infrared radiation.

Why Do Home Inspectors Use Thermal Imaging?

Thermal imaging is the best way to conduct thorough but noninvasive home inspections. With the help of thermal imaging, the inspection team can reach out to those places where naked eyes can’t reach. There are some areas where it is risky to reach for an inspection worker but with thermal imaging, you can easily reach there. Thermal cameras will allow you to look inside your walls, into walls, foundations, and other hard to see areas without destroying anything.

We have discussed top issues detected through the thermal camera during a home inspection:-

Moisture Detection in Walls and Ceilings

As discussed above, thermal imaging can help you to identify the hidden problems with your building structure. Moisture is one of the biggest problems that sometimes we cannot detect with our naked eyes. Thermal imaging helps in the detection of moisture in walls and ceilings. It will help you to find water damage to walls, floors, and ceilings. By detecting the difference in temperature between a wet area and the surrounding dry areas thermal imaging will help in finding moisture issues that are impossible to find with a regular inspection done with naked eyes. It is also excellent for finding places where the insulation contractor has failed to properly insulate.

Plumbing Inspections

It is hard to find the water leakage from a plumbing system with naked eyes and we can only detect it until some major damage occurs. But with thermal imaging, you can easily detect it by scanning your building from all sides and around plumbing fixtures in the home to determine if there is active leaking going on. Although a thermal imaging camera is not a moisture meter it is used to find heat anomalies and then pursue the issue further to attempt to determine the source and cause of the leak.

With the help of thermal image scanning, you can easily detect temperature anomalies in the plumbing system that is not easy to find with naked eyes. Once you notice the problem using thermal inspection you get an idea about where the issue is and you can get things solved before it causes some major issue or costly repair.

Detect Heat loss

In cold climates, keeping a house warm is an energy-intensive activity. People also use fireplaces or thermostats to maintain comfortable temperatures in their homes. The insulation of the house is of vital importance in such cases. Building with poor interior insulation will let the heat escape easily and rapidly and thus to maintain the heat you have to put more resources to keep the interiors of your building warm. This will eventually raise your cost over a span of months. So the best thing to do here is to have a thermal image scan of the building.  It will help you detect areas where heat is escaping the most. Once you will know the area of heat escape you can get it fixed easily.  Thermography uses specially designed infrared video or still cameras to make pictures that show surface heat variations.

Pest inspection

Thermal imaging tracks the heat signature of pests in hidden locations such as wall cavities, ceiling voids, and stored commodities. Thermal imaging helps in the detection of pest activity by detecting the heat release as pest activity produces a great deal of heat that is often visible to the infrared camera. These areas are hard to find with naked eyes but thermal imaging can easily detect them by scanning the area for pests as part of an in-depth survey and areas that are warmer than the surrounding environment are indicated by a lighter color on reports.

Detect Electrical Hazards

Thermal imaging is best to find any electrical hazards in your building. Since most of the wiring is not visible to naked eyes and you can never detect the faulty part easily, thermal imaging can be very handy here.

Hotspot with faulty wiring will have a different surface temperature compared to the rest of the wall when you will detect it with thermal cameras. Once such points of failure are identified, you can repair them early, avoiding catastrophic scenarios like a fire.

Cracks in the foundation of a home

Cracks in a home’s foundation will lead in the future to major problems, and they are more common than you would expect. Once the basement work is complete you can use thermal imaging to scan walls and floors and you can easily identify any areas where there may be a crack. Cracks are dangerous as they can let cool air and water seep through.

Flat Roof Inspections

Thermal imaging can be used to detect the exact location of the leak and mark the region affected so that the leak area can be fixed. When the roof design is complex it is hard to find the leak spots with a regular inspection and sometimes it can be a risky job for a worker as well. With a complex roof design, you can take the help of a drone camera thermal imaging and the result will be outstanding.

Finding blocked drainage pipes

Thermal imaging can help you find blocked drain pipes without any building destruction. A blocked pipe can cause a delta in temperature around that area that can transfer to the external pipe casing. The thermal inspection team can easily locate the area and then you can fix it promptly.

Other Detection Capabilities

There are many other capabilities such as erosion, roof leaks, etc. that thermal imaging can provide you. When it comes to keeping your home secure and free from unwanted intrusions, identifying such events is important and the use of a thermal camera during home inspection offers great help.

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