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- This topic has 3 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 12 years ago by Paul Buckingham.
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15 December 2011 at 2:23 pm #31605Anonymous
Anybody got any views or experience of the best Thermal Imaging cameras for community (ie parish/ ward) use?
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15 December 2011 at 4:54 pm #38310
You need to be a bit more specific!
What do you want to achieve?
A lot of skill and experience needed to use one and to correctly interpret the results.
I have a 'cheap' one that is useful for tracking problems and for finding air leaks during blower door tests but it would be considered a toy by a building Thermographer.
Nick
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19 December 2011 at 9:31 pm #38311
Too late for your deadline but not much to add. Expensive bit of kit to let people have a go and results need a lot of interpretation and knowledge about buildings to make use of. For uninsulated buildings you will mainly learn if the heating is used rather than much new about the U values and without insulation there will be no thermal bridges to spot!
Sorry to be a wet blanket.
More useful for new build or energy efficient refurb and for spotting defects but not a magic wand to determine energy use.
Nick
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16 March 2012 at 12:46 pm #38312
From my experience, community groups carry out vast quantities of surveys within a short space of time by taking a couple of images of each house from the outside. I find that external images like this actually show very little of any real value, the best they are likely to achieve is raise an interest in thermal imaging. I have my own camera and use it to indicate missing insulation, draughts, etc, each survey usually takes at least an hour and I mainly work around the inside of the house which really shows up some scarey stuff!
If you are looking to buy a community camera I would seriously think about what you are hoping to achieve with it, getting useful information takes time and needs a degree of skill to interpret what you see. If your community have time to spare to really look in depth at each building then I see no reason for not purchasing one, however if you are looking to carry out quantity surveys of whole streets, etc in a few evenings then the benefits probably do not justify the financial outlay.
Generating interest in thermal imaging by hiring a camera for a week and then passing on the interest to a professional is probably a better way to go to produce some real energy saving advice and results.
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