I love having conversations about thermal insulation as I really believe that the total Cost of Ownership is greatly effected by how well our homes are performing from the outside in and the inside out. Last weekend at a First-Time Buyers Home Inspection, Kraig Benoit with Benoit Home Inspection Service had a Thermal imaging camera.  It was so cool!  What’s great about this Tool is it gives you a visual on everything we can’t see with our eyes during inspections.  I felt fortunate because Kraig knows my background and expertise, so while he was busy doing the normal home inspection activities,  he let me play with camera for awhile around the home.  It was a fun illustration for Melodey, who is a first-time homebuyer.  We were all over the house checking things out.  We went into the basement where the hot water tank was located.  You could easily see the hot and cold water lines in the camera.  Great simple illustration as to how it works.  After chasing me down to give him back his very expensive inspection tool …Kraig took Melodey, Pat and I into the bathroom where he showed us how it helps him find water leaks or areas to the sub-floor that might have incurred water damage due to leaks around the toilet, tub, etc.

We found this to be a very useful tool.  Here’s what Kraig had to say;

“The  benefit of thermal imagine is a more complete, non invasive inspection, When I completed a visual inspection of this basement there was not any evidence of moisture intrusion. No staining the paint wasn't blistering. When I scanned the room with the thermal imaging camera there was some anonymity of moisture. I then verified the areas with the moisture meter and there was in fact high level of moisture behind the wall. Moisture can go undetected and cause serious  microbe growth and structural damage. Being trained to use the thermal imaging camera you  should be able to find these locations before they become a serious problem." Kraig Benoit
Benoit Home Inspection Service
PO Box663
Otis Orchards, WA. 99027
(509)714-7335
E-mail [email protected]

I did a bit of investigative work online and here is what is currently being said about Thermography.  “Thermography is the use of an infrared imaging and measurement camera to "see" and "measure" thermal energy emitted from an object. Thermal, or infrared energy, is light that is not visible because its wavelength is too long to be detected by the human eye; it's the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that we perceive as heat. Unlike visible light, in the infrared world, everything with a temperature above absolute zero emits heat. Even very cold objects, like ice cubes, emit infrared. The higher the object's temperature, the greater the IR radiation emitted. Infrared allows us to see what our eyes cannot.

Infrared thermograpic cameras produce images of invisible infrared or "heat" radiation and provide precise non-contact temperature measurement capabilities. Nearly everything gets hot before it fails, making infrared cameras extremely cost-effective, valuable diagnostic tools in many diverse applications.”

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 By the way ~

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