Find Faults with a Thermal Building Inspection
Thermal Surveys for Buildings
A building, whether it be a domestic or commercial property can benefit from a building thermal survey. A Forward-Looking Infra-Red Camera (FLIR) can detect a number of building issues that are usually invisible to the naked eye. You can learn more about FLIR cameras here. Your building structure could be suffering from heat loss, water ingress, cold bridging, or defective insulation. Being able to identify these anomalies before it’s too late can help you to maintain your property, save money, and reduce your carbon footprint.
A Thermal Image Survey on your building can map any energy loss, and also locate exactly where this is occurring. Using thermal images in this way can reduce the need for potentially expensive and invasive building works. According to Insulation.org, wet insulation can result in 10 x heat loss as compared to that of dry insulation.
Save Money on Energy - Get a Thermal Survey
Thermal Imaging Inspections
We use our UAV’s (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) to inspect every aspect of your building from elevations, roofs, chimney stacks, and windows, if there are any anomalies, we will find them. The thermal images (RJpegs) are then run through our photogrammetry software using the most modern techniques on RJPG images. This then allows the identification of any points of weakness in your building. Thermal imaging inspections allow a never before seen view of your building to highlight images that are not visible with the naked eye.
Who Can Benefit from a Thermal Imaging Inspection & Survey?
We believe that anyone who pays for energy could benefit from a thermal imaging survey. The earth has limited and precious stocks of fossil fuels, and what is left should not be squandered lightly, especially when a fix is available. FLIR camera systems have helped save millions in wasted energy across the world.
Housing Associations: Drone Site Surveys can assist with reports identifying heat loss within your housing stock. We are able to cover huge amounts of your properties in a much speedier time frame than would normally be possible using traditional surveying methods. Reducing heat loss, enabling you to identify properties with issues allows you to become proactive rather than reactive.
Facilities Managers: If you look after a large or small building, heat loss can be costing you or your tenants money. Helping identify and fix issues in your building will create happier tenants and reduce your carbon footprint.
Landlords: A thermal imaging inspection of your properties can easily identify areas that are costing your tenants money in energy (gas and electricity) escaping from your home. Save £000s each year by repairing any defects that can be identified. You may also find leaks or other water issues in your home that may develop into larger problems if not rectified at the earliest opportunity.
Contact Us to Get Started With a Thermal Survey
What are the Benefits of a Thermal Roof Survey
All roof types can be thermally surveyed and there are benefits to all. Whether flat, pitched, insulated, even metal, thermal imaging can easily identify areas of weakness and water ingress. One of the best features of a thermal roof survey is that they are non-invasive and require no scaffolding or working at height. Roofs should be regularly surveyed, they protect valuable assets below and if your roof has a warranty, it is probably part of the t’s and c’s to get your roof regularly inspected.
Some of the benefits of a thermal roof survey
- Identify any hidden issues, quickly, safely, and accurately
- Detect standing water or areas of water ingress on flat roofs
- Get evidential footage before any bad weather
- Use the aerial imagery to make a claim on your roof insurance
You can, with a thermal survey, identify problems in your roof way before the effects will be seen inside the building.
What Can a Thermal Roof Survey Identify?
A Thermal Camera inspection is a non-invasive way of inspecting your property for a range of heat loss problems, including cold spots and issues with cavity wall insulation.
Our qualified and experienced thermographers can identify areas of missing insulation within the cavity of your brick walls, around windows, and above ceilings in your loft space. A good heat loss survey will clearly show areas of missing insulation and even how much of an effect these issues have on the temperature in your room. While it is important to identify areas of concern, we can also determine the impact of these issues on your living space.
Using Thermography, we are also able to carry out inspections for issues such as water leak detection to identify areas of water ingress into your property.
U-values – What they are and why they are important in thermal surveys
In their simplest form, U-values measure how thermally efficient building materials are as insulators.
If your building has been constructed with thermally efficient building products, then your building will be warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and your U-value will be a low figure.
Measuring U-values
Calculating U-values is extremely technical. There are various calculators online, but the basic calculation is W/m²K which is Watts per metre squared Kelvin.
Most U-values are measured theoretically during the construction of buildings, by knowing the thermal resistance of each layer during the design process. It is much more difficult in retrospect to get a U-value of for example a cavity wall once it has been constructed, although it can be achieved.
What is a Thermal Heat Loss Survey?
A Thermal Heat Loss Survey is a Thermographic Inspection of your property using an infrared camera to investigate the effectiveness of heat retention and identify areas where improvements could possibly be made.
Using industry-standard Flir cameras and thermal imaging inspection software, our qualified thermographer drone pilots are able to detect faults within your building, highlighting areas of concern that need addressing to improve the efficiency of retaining heat and thereby lowering your heating bills and reducing your carbon emissions.
A wide range of issues including missing insulation, failure of brickwork, underfloor heating problems, and lack of airflow can create cold areas within your property and lead to dampness, which can all be identified during a Thermal Heat Loss Survey.
We carry out thermal surveys all across the UK, find out here if we operate near you.
Contact us to Book a Thermal Survey