Thermal Imaging

Evaluating your home with an infrared camera is an essential part of our energy audit service. This tool reveals valuable images indicating the quality of your home's thermal envelope. Using the infrared camera and the blower door concurrently helps us to identify and document many hard to find air leakage pathways and drafts. The infrared camera often shows us hidden air leaks and areas where insulation is underperforming or missing through contrasting colors on the thermal image. In the summer air leaks and missing insulation is shown by hot bright red and orange spots surrounded by cool blue walls; and in the winter the opposite occurs, with air leaks and missing insulation showing up as dark blue and purple spots. We also use thermal imaging after we finished work on the house to assure the problems have been fixed.

The thermal images above revealed a huge point of air leakage around the top of the chimney during this energy audit in the summer, with 91°F air entering the house through this point! This point was a large contributor to the discomfort and high energy bills that this homeowner was experiencing. Luckily, our auditor and crew were able to identify this point and properly seal it to prevent any more air leakage through the chimney.

After our crew completed the work, we checked the home with the thermal camera again to affirm all the air leaks have been sealed and to check for any points we may have missed. The third thermal image above shows the same spot at the chimney, only this time there is no air leakage! The infrared camera shows one even color at a comfortable temperature of 76°F.