Anyone have any experience with the thermographic imaging some energy auditors are doing now? One in my area had a radio add advertising $99 for a scan and report. I'm wondering if this would be a good way (and cheaper than a blower test) to spot infiltration and make fixes to lower heat loss envelope of a building.

We routinely do them when we are commissioning new commercial buildings and find them very helpful for finding missing insulation and air leaks.  They are also useful for electrical panels, finding missing pipe insulation and determinine whether roof insulation (flat roof) is saturated.

To get really good results, you need at least 40 to 50 degrees difference between inside and outside temperature, so it is usually a wintertime activity.  Make sure they do inside, outside and attic/roof.  If they do all of that, I think $99 would be money well spent.

Doing a thermographic study in conjunction with a blower door test would be especially interesting.

Bruce

I just had our hose done for the Energy Star rating and they did a blower door test and thermographic imaging. I did ask him why they didn't just use the imaging he said that then they can see if it does leak where it will leak much more obvious with the blower door in. If they just image it in still air or even windy from one direction they get infiltration on just the windy side and won’t see it on the other. Although if they shot it from both inside and out you would think they would?

It was amazing to see, you could see all the hurricane strapping at the roof and all the studs and supports above and below windows, and you could even make out some wiring. It almost looked like an x-ray. I wish I could borrow it and look in great detail around our house this winter.

You paid for it, but they don't let you actually keep it? Sounds like they do it as a promotion to get you to use their expensive caulking services.

He had it recording on something (maybe HD?), you could see the results real time and later he reviewed spots and showed them to the builder and I via laptop. The good thing he said it was really tight, one of the best he ahd seen this year. Our builder paid for the rating and I just happened to be home when they did the testing.

I had the blower test done and it helped me identify a few areas where air was leaking. The guy said the blower is something like $600, I was toying with the idea of buying one. it would be very useful in tracking down and sealing all the leaks in the house.  

I had a home energy audit done six months ago using a home show special discount with a company who specialize in home improvements. Our 18 year old cape cod home is of standard average construction.

Auditor did a blower door test with smoke pencil and thermal imaging. The smoke test identify minor door and window leakage. The thermal image identified a major air infiltration running from one side of the house to the other side in a joist bay between the first and second floor. Also identify minor leakage were the ceilings join the exterior walls. Overall he said the house is tight for its construction and age.

The audit process took about three hours to complete. I received professional detailed report two weeks later with thermal and digital photos taken of the problem area. This was the best $250 spent which leaves me with piece of mind and knowledge were to focus my energy fixing these issues.

Bob

TG, My auditor suggested for a DIY blower door test to mount a box fan in a window and use plastic sheeting/duct tape to seal the opening,  Also turning on all the home's exhaust fans so you can create enough negative pressure to use a smoke pencil.

Bob

Looks like a DIY project is the way to go. After posting, I was trying to see how much they go for, but they are only sold in kits, which includes the electronic measuring tool, for several thousand dollars. I was starting to think I could build something simular for the door with wood, plastic and a decent fan, but a window sounds like a better way to go. I can't beleive they are not sold seperately, what happens if you fan goes kuput or your door frame gets damaged, you have to buy another whole kit? Sounds like a Scam to me. 

 

 

Thats were the company's replacement parts revenue comes into play... ;)

Oh Oh, when he did our test one of the ones he did was turn on all the bathroom exhaust fans, oven hood and dryer. He said it was the same negative pressure as his door blower was set for. He did this then went down to check for back drafting on the water heater to find it was power vented and started up fine with a good exhaust.

So Bob I think you’re on to something there, probably the kitchen oven hood and the dryer were the two biggies, I think the bathrooms were all about 40-50 cfm range and the kitchen was about 1000 cfm, dryer was maybe 400 cfm?

Now I just need to find a cheap used thermal camera, I wonder if an IR camera would work.

Well here is the thing. If you are looking for what the Air Change per Hour (ACH) value is, then you need a calibrated fan to measure air flow, you need to measure pressure difference inside/outside and square footage of the home to calculate the ACH value.

As far as thermal imaging camera, he said the price has come down in the last five years or so from 20k to about 5k.