As electrical problems can prove to be very dangerous it is certainly something you want to catch right away. Our thermal imaging cameras allow us to scan any area, large or small.
We will search for hot spots on your electrical system or any machinery that may indicate a problem. We can then diagnose the problem or even confirm that an issue has been properly repaired.
Infrared Thermographic Inspection for Electrical Problems
Electrical systems are an essential part of any home or building. Electrical systems are also a very sensitive aspect of a home, in that they should be working properly at all times.
An electric fault should never be ignored as it could cause a lot of damage if left unattended to.
Unfortunately, some electrical faults will develop behind the walls, above the ceilings, or under the floors, and you can never tell. That necessitates periodic inspection. Infrared thermographic imaging is the best technology being used for such inspections currently.
Infrared thermographic inspections are quite effective in establishing electrical faults that you cannot see with your naked eye.
Keep in mind that, just because your electrical connections are working, it does not imply that your electrical system can have no fault. In fact, by the time your system breaks down, the fault will have developed more faults continued to worsen over time.
Infrared Thermographic Inspections
Infrared thermographic inspections involve the use of infrared cameras. The camera captures images of temperature changes in the air.
The thermal variations are depicted as different colors by the camera depending on the amount of infrared radiation produced by the change. The color scheme is that of the wavelength spectrum.
Infrared imagers have continued to improve over the years. Today, they are much more affordable, easy to use, and more accurate than they were a couple of years back.
They are a must-have for any electrical maintenance professional. We are an agency consisting of qualified thermographic inspection specialists. We conduct building inspections on your behalf.
We have the expertise and equipment needed to identify electrical faults and recommend appropriate solutions.
Our qualified technicians will arrive at your premise within the shortest time possible to conduct the inspection. The technicians point the thermal imaging camera at the electrical connections all over your home.
The camera will scan the connections, and the technician is able to identify overheating spots, leaking spots and loose connections.
The camera captures digital images, and they can be uploaded to a computer or smartphone for further analysis and preparing reports.
Why You Need Professional Inspectors
We’ve mentioned above that infrared thermographic imagers are easy to use, but that does not imply that they can be used by anyone. They are easy to use for thermographic inspection specialists.
There is a lot of technical know-how that’s needed to be able to identify the faults with the infrared imagers. These imagers are efficient and effective while being used by qualified technicians who have knowledge of electrical measurements and components.
Infrared thermal imaging is a qualitative process. The identification of faults is based on comparison with known and expected temperature levels.
As such, the different color shades on the images can only make sense to someone who understands electrical components and has experience with thermal imaging.
Thermal imaging for electrical problems also encompasses many electrical components, and each component has different emissivity.
Emissivity, in this case, is a measure of the amount of infrared radiation that a component emits when it undergoes a unit change in temperature.
Infrared thermal imaging can capture faults in the following areas.
Wiring and Connections
The conductor layout across the home or building is not continuous, it has connections and bridges. Most of the times, faults occur in these connections or bridges. A faulty connection tends to have higher temperatures than the surrounding areas.
That will show on the infrared image captured. Some spots would be expected to be warm as well. It could be an abnormality if such spots are detected as cold. Wiring insulation breakages can also be easily detected as well.
Fuses
There are a lot of fuses in your electrical systems than you know. These fuses protect your electrical appliances from burning up. Faulty or blown fuses will show up on the infrared image.
The technician can identify a fuse that is nearing its capacity or one that has already blown up.
Motors
Motor control centers are yet another sensitive component of your electrical system. They have to be inspected under load, in order to ascertain their condition.
The inspection of motor control centers involves comparing temperature changes of key components such as bus bars, starters, controllers, relays, feeders, and many others. Each of these components is scanned to ascertain its condition.
Transformers
Transformer inspections investigate bushing connections, cooling tubes, fans, pumps and the transformer surfaces. Oil-filled transformers are investigated for leakages as well.
Transformer maintenance prolongs its life span. Transformers tend to overheat, especially when the cooling systems are not working optimally. If a transformer overheats by 10°C its lifespan will reduce with up to 50%.
Please note that all these inspections are done with the electrical systems on load. Part of the inspection involves getting really close to naked electric cables and components that are on load.
Only trained and experienced technicians are allowed to work under such circumstances.
Our technicians work under the highest safety standards. They’ll show up with all the necessary safety equipment to ensure you do not have to worry about the lability of people getting injured on your premises.
Although all electrical systems are not similar, electrical problems are almost typical. During each inspection, there are specific problems that our technicians usually expect.
These are mainly caused by wear and tear. The following are some of the common problems that are easily identifiable by infrared thermographic imaging.
Overheating Circuits
Overheating circuits is a common issue in many electrical systems. Overheating circuits are quite dangerous because they can cause fires. They are mainly caused by too much current or worn out components.
Infrared thermographic imaging is quite effective in detecting overheating circuits and the specific components in the circuit that is causing the problem.
In order to understand how infrared thermographic imaging is able to identify leaking circuits, let’s look into the exact causes of overheating in circuits.
Causes of Overheating Circuits
Overheating in circuits can be caused by excessive current. This often happens because of an old and dilapidated system, or improper installations. Fuses and circuit breakers should safeguard the circuits against the excess current.
A wrong or poor connection is likely to cause overheating as well. If your technician installed the wrong components in the wrong circuit, it is going to cause overheating.
Electrical components require high accuracy, and each component has its specifications. In most cases, electrical components do not have substitute functions.
Insulation breakdown will also cause overheating. Insulation breaks cause some conductors to come into contact with each other and therefore causing interference in the two circuits.
It is usually a dangerous situation, and in most instances, there will be sparks. Insulation breakdowns carry a high risk of electrical fires.
Thermographic Imaging for Overheating Circuits
We earlier highlighted how thermographic imaging is used to scan various electrical components. Each component in a circuit is scanned to identify any cases of overheating.
The technician knows the appearance of a proper working component, and any deviation will indicate an abnormality.
Overheating circuits are particularly quite easy to call out since the heat variations are usually quite significant.
The use of wrong components or low-quality ones can be easily detected as well. Quality components that are connected in the right manner are expected to operate in a certain manner.
They produce typical images when scanned with the infrared thermographic imager. Any improper connection will produce abnormal images, even if it is functioning.
Normally, the use of wrong components causes resistance to current flow, which in turn causes temperature increase. This thermal variation is picked up by the infrared imager.
The imager can also easily pick up instances of broken insulation as well. As mentioned above, insulation breakages will cause sparks in most cases. You might even be able to see the sparks with your own eyes.
If you see any, switch off the electricity at the mains and call a professional technician to come and take a look immediately.
Infrared thermal inspections are the best way to identify overheating circuits. The inspections will pick out every single component in the circuit that has a problem. That allows you as the homeowner to be sure of what is wrong with your systems, and not get duped by rogue technicians.
Our inspectors will leave you with recommendations on how to solve the problem, and you should, therefore, have a perspective of how much the repair would cost.
Overloading
Overloading is a situation where your electrical system is supporting too many appliances than it has the capacity to. That has a cascading effect on the individual components in the system.
The components start becoming ineffective gradually as a result of being overburdened.
In most instances, the homeowner is the cause of overloading. For instance, you might just keep buying electrical appliances and machinery and connecting them to your home’s electrical system while not checking whether it has the capacity.
Infrared thermographic imaging will detect overloading as well. Strained electrical components will give back abnormal images.
In homes, cases of overloading are as a result of cumulative power requirements by the various appliances in the home. You cannot call out one appliance as the one that is causing the overloading.
Overloading is mainly detected through faulty fuses and circuit breakers. Motor and transformer faults are indications of an overloaded system.
As noted earlier, infrared thermographic inspection reports are prepared through a qualitative process.
Overloading will be ascertained by our inspectors after they carefully examine all the components in your electrical system.
They will also advise you on how to ensure your system is not overloaded, or how you can upgrade your electricity supply so that all your appliances and machinery are catered for with instances of overloading.
Faulty Wires and Conductors
Wiring or conductor problems are arguably the easiest to detect using infrared thermographic imaging technology. Our inspectors will scan all the conductors in your home to ensure they are in good condition.
Conductor faults are not very common though. It is usually either a connection problem or corrosion.
Corrosion causes resistance to the flow of current. As such, the temperature around the corroded part of the conductor is going to rise. Conductors are also designed to carry a specific amount of current.
They will start wearing out and emitting too much heat if there is excessive current. Higher heat than expected around the conductors is always an indication of a problem.
Conductor problems are quite common around connections as well. Loose connections or connecting incompatible conductors will certainly cause problems. Faults along connections behave in a similar manner as those on any other part of the conductor.
It is important to note that conductor faults, bad connections, are usually an indication of an underlying problem. It could be excess current, overloading, or a faulty component.
Our experienced inspectors will be able to call out the problem if there is a series of conductor problems in your house.
Conductors can also be affected by external issues such as leaking pipes, or exposure to harsh weather conditions. An infrared thermographic inspection will help determine all of these issues.
Faulty Plugs
Every electrical appliance has a plug that ensures it gets just the right amount of current from the mains. Just like other electrical components, plugs might develop subtle faults that continue to worsen gradually.
That means they could easily damage your electrical appliances, many of which are normally expensive.
An infrared thermographic inspection will spot faulty plugs as well. Each plug is designed to accept and output a certain amount of current. A faulty plug is bound to have thermal emission variation from ordinary plugs.
Our inspectors understand how a good plug behaves, and are able to identify a fault one from infrared images.
Plug faults are just like conductor faults. They are normally caused by an underlying problem within the electrical system in the home.
Our inspectors will not just stop at the plugs when they note they are faulty, they will investigate more to find out whether there are more problems, which is more than likely.
Benefits of Infrared Thermographic Inspections
From the discussions above, it is quite evident that infrared thermographic inspections for electrical systems are quite effective and essential.
There are a couple of reasons why infrared thermographic technology has become very popular in recent years. Here are some of the most prominent benefits of the infrared thermographic technology when it comes to inspecting your electrical systems.
Non-Intrusive
Electrical wiring and many other components are usually inside the walls, above the ceilings, or under the floors. Evaluating these components in any other way would involve investigating the walls, ceilings, and floors.
Now, imagine having to bust a wall, only to find that the fault is on another wall. You’d have to incur an unnecessary cost to rebuild that wall.
The infrared thermographic technology enables our inspectors to provide a comprehensive report of all the electrical faults in your home without needing to go behind the walls or into your ceilings.
The inspection does not involve touching or moving the structure of your home in any way. Our infrared imaging cameras are able to scan components while they are inside the walls.
Accuracy and Precision
There is no trial and error when it comes to infrared thermographic inspections. Our inspection reports do not consist of any guesswork.
We will tell you which components are faulty, why they are faulty, and what needs to be done. We will also advise you on what to do to ensure the faults do not occur again when repairs are done.
It’s Quick
We will be in and out of your premise within a very short time. Normally, home inspections take just a couple of hours depending on the size of the home. Our inspectors will come in, scan the whole of your electrical system, and save thermographic images and footage.
The images and footage are then carefully examined by highly qualified inspectors at our offices, and a comprehensive report is prepared.
The report will be sent to you after our inspectors are done. The most important part of the report is the recommendations. They clearly outline what needs to be done to ensure your electrical system is up to standards.
The benefits of infrared thermographic inspections are overwhelming. It is indeed the best technology in the field right now, and you should know about it as a home or business owner or if you are planning to purchase either.
Next time you need an inspector for your electrical systems, contact us without hesitation.
We are the best home inspectors in this field. We recommend that you get your home’s electrical system inspected annually. You should also insist on getting an inspection report if you are buying a new home.
A positive electrical systems report from us could help lower your home insurance premium. Your insurance provider will not feel compelled to charge you more if they find out that your house is safe from electric fires.
Get in touch with us today and schedule an electric system inspection for your home. Our experienced inspectors will show up at your premises armed with the best infrared imaging cameras in the industry, and provide an exhaustive report in the shortest time possible.