• Is your home cold and drafty?
• Are some rooms colder than others?
• Are your energy bills higher than you think they should be?
• Does you home smell musty?

Infrared scanning can easily verify insulation inside walls and ceilings. The camera will reveal where there is missing, settled, or has become wet and damaged. As an added benefit, when we scan your home, we can also identify where cold air is coming through your walls.

ORDER YOUR INFRARED SCAN TODAY!

Did you know that your home has never been checked for thermal efficiency? It is not required as part of the normal building process, yet you would think that this critical step would be required so that you, as the one who pays the energy bills, would not have to pay for shoddy workmanship causing huge energy losses.

THE CONTRACTOR: The contractor installs insulation in all of the obvious areas, yet there is no quality control step mandated to confirm that it was all done correctly. The insulation installers are not required to be licensed, and in many instances they are not trained at all in the installation of air barriers, thermal barriers, or heat transfer.

We often identify voids in the wall and ceiling insulation (look at the photos). The sad fact is that just because there is insulation in the wall does not mean that it is installed correctly. Many things happen in the installation process that includes fiberglass batts being cut too short, insulation over-compressed, insulation cut too long, or sagging insulation inside the walls. These mis-installations greatly affect the performance of the thermal barrier and cost you, the homeowner, money in higher energy bills.

THE BUILDING DEPARTMENT: The building officials walk through the jobsite in progress and look for obvious insulation omissions, yet they require no thermal imaging testing to verify that it is all in place. With nobody checking the thermal envelope during the building process, there has been no easy way to confirm that it was done correctly, until now. Thermal imaging will reveal the voids so that the thermal envelope can be sealed.

MOBILE HOMES: These structures have a really difficult time with insulation settlement because they are transported down a bumpy highway at fifty miles an hour, this can cause significant shifting of the insulating barrier with no visual clues. Thermal imaging can easily reveal the settlement voids.

THE HOME INSPECTOR: Most buyers today make the good decision to have a qualified home inspector evaluate the buildings and its components. Most buyers presume incorrectly that the inspector will catch the thermal envelope issues. Right? Wrong!!!

Home inspectors are a valuable asset to a home buyer, but they perform a VISUAL inspection only. They can not see past the drywall. If the insulation is missing, they cannot see it. If the insulation has sagged downward, they cannot see it. If water has penetrated the wall cavity and soaked into the insulation, rendering it useless, they also cannot see it or report on it because the insulation issues can’t be seen through the drywall with the naked eye. Concealed wall cavity conditions are explicitly excluded in their contracts. This is where the inspector’s ability stops and where the Certified Thermographer takes control. Let us perform your thermal image scan.

ORDER YOUR INFRARED SCAN TODAY!

When you consider the current high energy costs, it makes little sense to replace your old heating system with a new energy efficient system before you first check your home’s thermal envelope for missing/wet/settled/damaged insulation, as well as air infiltration drafts into the home. Insulation and weatherstripping are cheap and it is important to repair the thermal envelope before investing in the new heating system.

RECOMMENDED STEPS:

• Perform the thermal imaging scan.
• Identify the missing insulation and air infiltration areas.
• Repair the missing/wet/settled/damaged insulation and weatherstripping.
• Repair the identified drafts in the home.
• Then consider replacing the existing heating system with the highest efficiency unit that you can afford; 90% or greater is recommended.

ORDER YOUR INFRARED SCAN TODAY!

Air leakage, or infiltration, occurs when outside air enters a house uncontrollably through cracks and openings. Properly sealing such cracks and openings in your home can significantly reduce heating and cooling costs, improve building durability, and create a healthier indoor environment.

Stopping air infiltration is not a difficult process, however, finding the point of infiltration can be difficult since you can’t see the airflow with your naked eye.

Even today, some contractors are trying to find the point of air infiltration using a smoke pencil or a lighter, and then they watch to see either the smoke follow the draft or the flame to flutter. This hit and miss method will show the owner that there is air flow but not exactly where it is coming from. Documenting air flow with thermal imaging equipment is effective, accurate, and can record the condition with pictures.

The recommended strategy in both new and old homes is to reduce air leakage as much as possible and to provide controlled ventilation as needed. Reducing the air leakage means an increased saving in energy costs. Please note that air sealing alone can't replace the need for proper insulation throughout your home, which is needed to reduce heat flow.