Got a thermal imaging camera for the weekend

Daox · 03-10-12, 08:29 AM

I was talking with my boss about a week ago about my upcoming energy audit. He mentioned that I should just use the company's thermal camera. So, this weekend I borrowed it and am going to snap a ton of pictures of the house.

Piwoslaw · 03-10-12, 01:34 PM

Cool

Lot's of fun stuff to do with one of those. What's the weather like now? IMO the best for searching for thermal leaks is when it's really cold, but I guess you didn't have a chance to borrow it then.

While you've got it, it would be neat to get an image of your car(s) with the heat or A/C on. This would show you where you are losing/gaining heat, so insulating those areas would increase comfort without using adding A/C load (summer) or robbing the engine of its heat (winter).

Geo NR Gee · 03-10-12, 11:18 PM

Check out the trim on top of the door to the garage (if you have one) and the front door trim on the top piece. The energy auditor said that all the hundreds of homes he has been in, that is where he can always count on them leaking.

Seems as though the construction crews forget to seal them. They do the sides, but forget the top as you don't see it. My sliding patio door trim was also leaking bad. The slider itself was fine.

Are you going to share the pictures????

Daox · 03-11-12, 08:02 AM

Yeah, I am going to post pictures. I just had a full day yesterday.

My doors were pretty good. Of course there is thermal bridging over them due to the framing around it, but there were no leaks (I just sealed them up with expanding foam recently). Here is an image of the top of my front door. The stuff right above the door is expanding foam. I haven't put the trim back on yet.

I did find some interesting things, although I didn't find any huge leaks... I guess we'll see how bad the house leaks after the energy auditor comes back this coming week. The first few shots here are all exterior shots. It must have been in the low 20F range outside.

This is one of my basement windows from the outside at night. The basement isnt heated, but you can still see its pretty warm compared to the siding.

This is the exterior basement entrance. The door is an insulated steel door.

Here is a full exterior shot of the front of the house. I put in some temperature points so you can see the difference between my 2x4 insulated kitchen vs my uninsulated upstairs and the difference between newer double pane windows vs single pane windows upstairs (with storms). I'm not sure what the lighter streaks are.

I'll post up more later today.

Piwoslaw · 03-11-12, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daox

I'm not sure what the lighter streaks are.

Maybe some cables or conduits inside the wall? They might not be used anymore, so you might not even know about them. Just a guess.

MetroMPG · 03-12-12, 11:38 AM

Very interesting! And lucky of you to have access to that camera.

Daox · 03-12-12, 07:24 PM

Phew, finally got some time to post up the rest of my pics.

What I first did was go around the whole house on the inside and snapped pictures of any cold areas. This should show generally where I have conductive losses. After doing that I turned on all three of my exhaust fans in the house. Per my energy audit these fans pulled 9 pascals. With the sealing I've done since it should pull a bit more. All the pictures in this post are with no exhaust fan.

A note when looking at these images. Make sure to look at the scale on the side. While it may look like an area is really cold, it might not be. The camera automatically adjusts the scale based on what is in its view.

First off we have a picture of pretty darn new kitchen double hung windows. This window was installed probably around 5 years ago. You can actually see light coming out of the corner if you look hard enough. The rest seems to seal fairly well, but not this corner.

Here is a fairly well sealed up outlet. The cold is mainly due to there being next to no insulation behind the box.

Here is the area I just sealed up between my hallway and my sunroom. It was identified by the auditor to be a bad leakage area. Its nice and tight now. You can see how reflective layer on the polyiso insulation will reflect the IR light and give false readings. This is the same thing that foil does with radiant heat.

This is actually a side view of the gap behind my fridge. Unfortunately I don't know when the compressor last ran. I just saw it and snapped a picture. I am surprised by the build up of heat back there!

Here is my attic access. It is sealed on 3/4 edges with stick on weather stripping. Above the door there is about a 20" air gap with some foil faced polyiso above that. Unfortunately the polyiso sheet its not sealed.

Here is a nice shot of my wonderful uninsulated upstairs walls.

I also went up in the attic to see if the chimney was wicking heat out of the house. It seems that isn't the case.

While I was up there I did snap a shot of the roof itself. It was a sunny morning and this side of the roof faces east.

MN Renovator · 03-13-12, 09:51 AM

Good pictures. Good motivation for me to post a thread with mine, I'll try to do that this week.

Your door looks like it was sealed well, I thought mine were considering they use the new style gaskets that even a brand new door has but I was wrong with mine.

Windows are reflective and looking at them from the outside are deceiving to an IR camera depending on how reflective the window is, a more reflective window on a hot day will show a reflection of the surrounding inside temperature, the other way around when its cold. I can see the inside of my house from one of my IR pictures as if I were looking in a mirror, I'd post it if it didn't have a clear picture of me in the reflection.

Your exterior basement entrance picture is interesting, the top right has a chunk of concrete or something that is hot. I'm not sure whether its a good idea or not to insulate directly against that since it could wick moisture to your siding and underneath the concrete and rot the wood and create a moisture path or not but I noticed the same thing with my house. My energy auditor said not to touch it becasuse it should be insulated from the inside if its not covered in siding but it does show a decent amount of heat loss either way.

It looks like the two front windows on the top might have some hot air leaking out the top with those hot spots against the soffits unless you have a vent above those windows.

..post 7
Your outlets look much better than mine, but you said there is no insulation behind them. common practice with fiberglass to not cut around the outlet and fit at least some insulation behind it as per the instructions of the fiberglass manufacturer. Might not be worth the effort to rip out a big enough drywall chunk to insulate and patch it again though. I'd imagine most people don't bother.

You could try to move your fridge forward a few inches to allow for more passive convection to cool that area behind the fridge, I've got mine about a foot forward, sticks out into the kitchen a little more but I don't mind and I think it helps a bit.

The attic door, if you've got some polyiso or any other sheet insulation left you could adhesive a piece directly to the attic access piece. Mine has fiberglass over it and it didn't seem bad enough for me to try and remedy.

If it is 20 degrees outside and 78 on an insulated wall and 75.5 on another wall, I'm having a hard time thinking that its not insulated. I have a section where the insulation was there but sloppy and there is a 9 degree difference in surface temperature between one stud cavity where its insulated and the next where its not and the same difference a foot higher where the insulation is. This is with temperatures 85 inside and 60 outside, a smaller difference than you have between your inside and outside. If there was no insulation, that wall would be likely be cold enough for condensation to form.

Hope this helps. I'm still working on my house too.

Daox · 03-13-12, 12:44 PM

The outlets probably have fiberglass crushed over them. I just meant since they're so deep there is very little insulation there.

I might try to move the fridge out a little more. I have already moved it out once already to get about a 3" gap back there.

I'm definitely going to try to glue a piece of polyiso to the attic hatch.

The upstairs walls technically aren't uninsulated, they just aren't insulated well at all. They have a intermediate layer of lathe and plaster inside the wall to make the wall kind of like a triple pane window.

MN Renovator · 03-13-12, 01:14 PM

In most construction insulation is usually just pushed to the side and compressed with gaps above and below the outlet and nothing really pushed behind. If you do have anything behind there, it's an above average job.

Here's my example of what I meant by missing or bad insulation. It seems yours is actually performing decently well in comparison even if its a non-standard install as a 'triple pane lath window' sort of thing.

Upstairs was 88 degrees at the time, 60 outside. With minimal insulation where the insulation bulged out of the this wall section, the temperature is almost always the 65th percentile between the indoor and outdoor temperature. So if its 65 inside and -10 outside, the wall is 39 degrees or so. There have been times where the spot was cold enough to have small flakes of frost develop on the wall overnight this winter when I had the temperature set back quite a bit.

03-10-12, 08:29 AM	#1
Daox Administrator Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Germantown, WI Posts: 5,525 Thanks: 1,162 Thanked 374 Times in 305 Posts	Got a thermal imaging camera for the weekend I was talking with my boss about a week ago about my upcoming energy audit. He mentioned that I should just use the company's thermal camera. So, this weekend I borrowed it and am going to snap a ton of pictures of the house. __________________ Current project - To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. & To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

03-10-12, 01:34 PM	#2
Piwoslaw Super Moderator Join Date: May 2009 Location: Warsaw, Poland Posts: 961 Thanks: 188 Thanked 110 Times in 86 Posts	Cool Lot's of fun stuff to do with one of those. What's the weather like now? IMO the best for searching for thermal leaks is when it's really cold, but I guess you didn't have a chance to borrow it then. While you've got it, it would be neat to get an image of your car(s) with the heat or A/C on. This would show you where you are losing/gaining heat, so insulating those areas would increase comfort without using adding A/C load (summer) or robbing the engine of its heat (winter). __________________ Ecorenovation - the bottomless piggy bank that tries to tame the energy hog.

03-11-12, 08:02 AM	#4
Daox Administrator Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Germantown, WI Posts: 5,525 Thanks: 1,162 Thanked 374 Times in 305 Posts	Yeah, I am going to post pictures. I just had a full day yesterday. My doors were pretty good. Of course there is thermal bridging over them due to the framing around it, but there were no leaks (I just sealed them up with expanding foam recently). Here is an image of the top of my front door. The stuff right above the door is expanding foam. I haven't put the trim back on yet. I did find some interesting things, although I didn't find any huge leaks... I guess we'll see how bad the house leaks after the energy auditor comes back this coming week. The first few shots here are all exterior shots. It must have been in the low 20F range outside. This is one of my basement windows from the outside at night. The basement isnt heated, but you can still see its pretty warm compared to the siding. This is the exterior basement entrance. The door is an insulated steel door. Here is a full exterior shot of the front of the house. I put in some temperature points so you can see the difference between my 2x4 insulated kitchen vs my uninsulated upstairs and the difference between newer double pane windows vs single pane windows upstairs (with storms). I'm not sure what the lighter streaks are. I'll post up more later today. Attached Thumbnails __________________ Current project - To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. & To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Last edited by Daox; 03-11-12 at 09:40 AM..

03-12-12, 11:38 AM	#6
MetroMPG Infrequent noob Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: 1000 Islands region, Ontario, Canada Posts: 402 Thanks: 37 Thanked 20 Times in 19 Posts	Very interesting! And lucky of you to have access to that camera. __________________ . To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

03-12-12, 07:24 PM	#7
Daox Administrator Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Germantown, WI Posts: 5,525 Thanks: 1,162 Thanked 374 Times in 305 Posts	Phew, finally got some time to post up the rest of my pics. What I first did was go around the whole house on the inside and snapped pictures of any cold areas. This should show generally where I have conductive losses. After doing that I turned on all three of my exhaust fans in the house. Per my energy audit these fans pulled 9 pascals. With the sealing I've done since it should pull a bit more. All the pictures in this post are with no exhaust fan. A note when looking at these images. Make sure to look at the scale on the side. While it may look like an area is really cold, it might not be. The camera automatically adjusts the scale based on what is in its view. First off we have a picture of pretty darn new kitchen double hung windows. This window was installed probably around 5 years ago. You can actually see light coming out of the corner if you look hard enough. The rest seems to seal fairly well, but not this corner. Here is a fairly well sealed up outlet. The cold is mainly due to there being next to no insulation behind the box. Here is the area I just sealed up between my hallway and my sunroom. It was identified by the auditor to be a bad leakage area. Its nice and tight now. You can see how reflective layer on the polyiso insulation will reflect the IR light and give false readings. This is the same thing that foil does with radiant heat. This is actually a side view of the gap behind my fridge. Unfortunately I don't know when the compressor last ran. I just saw it and snapped a picture. I am surprised by the build up of heat back there! Here is my attic access. It is sealed on 3/4 edges with stick on weather stripping. Above the door there is about a 20" air gap with some foil faced polyiso above that. Unfortunately the polyiso sheet its not sealed. Here is a nice shot of my wonderful uninsulated upstairs walls. I also went up in the attic to see if the chimney was wicking heat out of the house. It seems that isn't the case. While I was up there I did snap a shot of the roof itself. It was a sunny morning and this side of the roof faces east. Attached Thumbnails __________________ Current project - To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. & To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

03-10-12, 11:18 PM	#3
Geo NR Gee Journeyman EcoRenovator Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Seattle Posts: 326 Thanks: 109 Thanked 23 Times in 18 Posts	Check out the trim on top of the door to the garage (if you have one) and the front door trim on the top piece. The energy auditor said that all the hundreds of homes he has been in, that is where he can always count on them leaking. Seems as though the construction crews forget to seal them. They do the sides, but forget the top as you don't see it. My sliding patio door trim was also leaking bad. The slider itself was fine. Are you going to share the pictures????

03-13-12, 09:51 AM	#8
MN Renovator Less usage=Cheaper bills Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Minneapolis, MN Posts: 939 Thanks: 41 Thanked 116 Times in 90 Posts	Good pictures. Good motivation for me to post a thread with mine, I'll try to do that this week. Your door looks like it was sealed well, I thought mine were considering they use the new style gaskets that even a brand new door has but I was wrong with mine. Windows are reflective and looking at them from the outside are deceiving to an IR camera depending on how reflective the window is, a more reflective window on a hot day will show a reflection of the surrounding inside temperature, the other way around when its cold. I can see the inside of my house from one of my IR pictures as if I were looking in a mirror, I'd post it if it didn't have a clear picture of me in the reflection. Your exterior basement entrance picture is interesting, the top right has a chunk of concrete or something that is hot. I'm not sure whether its a good idea or not to insulate directly against that since it could wick moisture to your siding and underneath the concrete and rot the wood and create a moisture path or not but I noticed the same thing with my house. My energy auditor said not to touch it becasuse it should be insulated from the inside if its not covered in siding but it does show a decent amount of heat loss either way. It looks like the two front windows on the top might have some hot air leaking out the top with those hot spots against the soffits unless you have a vent above those windows. ..post 7 Your outlets look much better than mine, but you said there is no insulation behind them. common practice with fiberglass to not cut around the outlet and fit at least some insulation behind it as per the instructions of the fiberglass manufacturer. Might not be worth the effort to rip out a big enough drywall chunk to insulate and patch it again though. I'd imagine most people don't bother. You could try to move your fridge forward a few inches to allow for more passive convection to cool that area behind the fridge, I've got mine about a foot forward, sticks out into the kitchen a little more but I don't mind and I think it helps a bit. The attic door, if you've got some polyiso or any other sheet insulation left you could adhesive a piece directly to the attic access piece. Mine has fiberglass over it and it didn't seem bad enough for me to try and remedy. If it is 20 degrees outside and 78 on an insulated wall and 75.5 on another wall, I'm having a hard time thinking that its not insulated. I have a section where the insulation was there but sloppy and there is a 9 degree difference in surface temperature between one stud cavity where its insulated and the next where its not and the same difference a foot higher where the insulation is. This is with temperatures 85 inside and 60 outside, a smaller difference than you have between your inside and outside. If there was no insulation, that wall would be likely be cold enough for condensation to form. Hope this helps. I'm still working on my house too.

03-13-12, 12:44 PM	#9
Daox Administrator Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Germantown, WI Posts: 5,525 Thanks: 1,162 Thanked 374 Times in 305 Posts	The outlets probably have fiberglass crushed over them. I just meant since they're so deep there is very little insulation there. I might try to move the fridge out a little more. I have already moved it out once already to get about a 3" gap back there. I'm definitely going to try to glue a piece of polyiso to the attic hatch. The upstairs walls technically aren't uninsulated, they just aren't insulated well at all. They have a intermediate layer of lathe and plaster inside the wall to make the wall kind of like a triple pane window. __________________ Current project - To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. & To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

03-13-12, 01:14 PM	#10
MN Renovator Less usage=Cheaper bills Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Minneapolis, MN Posts: 939 Thanks: 41 Thanked 116 Times in 90 Posts	In most construction insulation is usually just pushed to the side and compressed with gaps above and below the outlet and nothing really pushed behind. If you do have anything behind there, it's an above average job. Here's my example of what I meant by missing or bad insulation. It seems yours is actually performing decently well in comparison even if its a non-standard install as a 'triple pane lath window' sort of thing. Upstairs was 88 degrees at the time, 60 outside. With minimal insulation where the insulation bulged out of the this wall section, the temperature is almost always the 65th percentile between the indoor and outdoor temperature. So if its 65 inside and -10 outside, the wall is 39 degrees or so. There have been times where the spot was cold enough to have small flakes of frost develop on the wall overnight this winter when I had the temperature set back quite a bit. Last edited by MN Renovator; 03-13-12 at 01:18 PM..