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IRTest infrared problem prevention

Infrared Technology Can Identify Hidden HVAC Issues

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The HVAC system in your building works hard around the clock to keep your employees or tenants comfortable—but how can you ever tell if your system is running as efficiently as it could be? Sometimes it’s impossible to tell unless you use infrared cameras. There are many benefits of infrared inspections for companies, but the potential cost savings is at the top of the list. Your HVAC system is an important component of your company, so you need to make sure it’s taken care of properly as well as identify any hidden issues potentially lurking.

How Infrared Cameras Work for HVAC

When dealing with HVAC systems, infrared thermography experts generally don’t know what to look for when they perform an inspection. In other words, the client doesn’t know if anything is wrong, so it’s up to the expert to determine it. Infrared cameras can detect air leaks, temperature, blown fuses, bad connections and much more. These are all things that may not necessarily immediately affect the performance of your HVAC system, but you could be wasting money because it’s working harder than it needs to be.

You May Not Know A Problem Exists

When your HVAC is working harder than it should to keep you comfortable, you’re spending more money than necessary. Infrared problem prevention is one of the best ways to ensure your HVAC system is working properly. Even the smallest air leaks could lead to additional and unnecessary costs out of your pocket. It may seem tedious at times, but you really don’t know how much money you’re wasting until you get an inspection completed. You will probably be surprised when you get your next bill and see how much lower it is after it has been running efficiently!

Potential Cost Savings With An Infrared Inspection

You have to pay upfront for an infrared thermography inspection. Sometimes experts may determine your HVAC is running properly, but most of the time there is something wrong if it hasn’t been inspected in a while. Hidden issues are very common with HVAC. If you don’t find them, you’ll be wasting money and energy on a daily basis. The harder you make your system work, the more likely it is to fail and need to be replaced earlier.

The long-term savings are evident when you look at the benefits of infrared inspection. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions about your HVAC system or if you’ve never had an inspection completed before.

Find hidden moisture with infrared thermography.

How Infrared Thermography Can Find Your Hidden Roof Moisture

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One of the scary things about owning a business is not knowing what’s going on without your knowledge or control. You generally know how your employees are performing, but what you may not realize is your building is slowly deteriorating. Roof moisture is the cause of some costly maintenance fees, which can do some serious damage to your bottom line. The bad part about it is you can’t always detect roof moisture on your own. Hiring a certified thermographer is one of the best ways to prevent a larger issue from happening with your roof. Here is how it works.

Professionals Know Where to Look

With the help of infrared thermography and experience, professionals know exactly where to look to find moisture. There are many types of roofs, and moisture doesn’t get trapped in the same places in all of them. When you have an infrared roof moisture survey conducted, the operator will identify the problem areas using their expertise and the technology available to them.

Distinguishes Wet Spots from Dry Spots

The process of radiational cooling occurs when the sun radiates heat onto the roof during the day and the heat goes back into the atmosphere at night. This process is important for infrared detection technology because wet spots in the roof containing moisture will remain warmer much longer than dry spots.

The infrared thermography equipment detects the heat distribution on the roof of your building and can determine if a particular location is warmer than the others. Warmer spots are clear indicators of moisture. Once the complete analysis is done on your roof, the expert will recommend whether they think it’s time to take action to correct the problem now or if it can wait until another time. However, when you’re dealing with moisture where it’s not supposed to be, it’s usually better to take action immediately.

Finding hidden roof moisture requires an experienced professional to conduct an infrared inspection. Business owners are often surprised their building has hidden moisture since there usually aren’t any visible signs. The importance of catching the problems early can’t be understated.

For more information on the process of finding hidden roof moisture in your building, contact us. We have a staff of professionals ready to answer any questions you have and to provide you with the preventive maintenance service you need to keep your business flourishing without unnecessary repair costs.

Three Little-Known Ways Roof Moisture Can Damage Your Facility

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Anyone who has ever owned or managed a building of any variety knows the damage risks a leaking roof can cause. The roof itself can easily suffer structural damage thanks to the extra moisture seeping in and eating away at it. However, there are many other issues a leaking roof can cause, far beyond the structure of just the roof. Here are a few of the other problems roof moisture can cause, which could convince you to look into commissioning infrared thermography as soon as possible.

1. Energy Leaks

This may sound like a bit of a head-scratcher, but think about what your roof is used for. It’s a means of keeping the interior of a building intact and the elements out, just like the walls and floor. To serve this purpose well, roofs are typically packed tightly with insulation to keep warmth, coolness and energy in and unwanted air and moisture out. If your roof is leaking, this leaves not just the roof itself vulnerable, but the insulation inside it as well.

Insulation isn’t made to handle moisture particularly well and too much leaves it soggy and unable to perform effectively. Drying the insulation is a time-consuming process, meaning if a leak should happen, you may as well invest in brand new insulation to protect your facility. Without a proper replacement, your energy use will increase dramatically.

2. Mold

Mold is the most common consequence of lingering moisture. You may have encountered it before in domestic situations, but it is just as likely in your commercial facility and perhaps even more hazardous if left to grow. The presence of mold lowers working conditions in your facility and can create certain health risks for your employees, especially those already prone to asthma and other respiratory issues. Even those without any documented illnesses should steer clear of mold because it can easily create breathing problems.

What we must point out here is if mold develops in your roof due to excess moisture, it can easily spread to the rest of your facility, such as the ceiling, the vents and anywhere else imaginable. You absolutely do not want to deal with eliminating mold if you can prevent it because the elimination measures can cost you days of valuable productivity. Most certified thermographers can pick up signs of moisture before the problem escalates to this point.

3. Pooling

If the moisture in your roof begins to accumulate, it can easily trickle down to your ceiling and drip from there, ending up as an ugly puddle on your facility’s floor. This is yet another safety hazard that can spell huge consequences. If a worker were to slip and fall in one of these puddles, you lose productivity, money and perhaps even a valuable employee. At best, they’ll be wet and a bit sore. At worst, they could suffer a serious injury and decide to pursue a lawsuit.

As with all other situations in life, it’s far better to be safe than sorry. We hope this article will enlighten you to the benefits of infrared inspection and how they can save your commercial facility in more ways than one. Contact us to learn how infrared thermography can help you!

Prevent problems with an infrared electrical systems survey.

How Infrared Thermography Can Prevent Power Failures

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Use infrared thermography to prevent power failures.

Infrared thermography can prevent power failure.

Prevent problems with an infrared electrical systems survey.

An infrared electrical systems survey can prevent problems.

Problems often occur when we least expect them. This holds especially true for every piece of electrical equipment, regardless of age. Even the newest equipment in your facility can run into unexpected problems. Perhaps the most unfortunate element of this type of trouble is we often fail to detect it until the problem has become too severe to prevent. This can lead to outages for at least one of your equipment devices, stalling your work day or perhaps several and cutting sharply into your profits until repairs can be finished. However, there’s an easy solution for this problem: infrared thermography. Read on to learn the greatest benefits of infrared inspection.

What Are the Benefits?

Since humans cannot see temperatures, it is up to us to create and use devices that have such capabilities. This is where infrared thermography comes in. With the help of thermographic equipment, professionals can easily detect problems within electrical gear or some other element based on the temperature readings picked up and depicted by the thermographic equipment. This means you’ll be able to pinpoint problems before they become too out of control to solve through more efficient and cost-effective means. Here are some more specific ways infrared thermography can save your productivity:

  1. It doesn’t intrude upon your work day. Infrared scans can be performed in such a way you and your staff can carry on with normal operations. The scan itself can still take place, with neither process intersecting until the scan is over with and results are available for you to view. The professional in charge of the reading won’t need to touch the piece of equipment being evaluated, meaning you can still let it run if you need to.
  2. It saves money. Infrared thermography has the unique quality of being able to locate problems long before they become noticeable to you. This enables you to take early action and get the issue resolved prior to the piece of equipment failing entirely. This ability saves you money by freeing you from having to invest exorbitant amounts toward repairs, which can total anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars. The maintenance costs will easily rival what you’d be paying for full repairs, meaning you’d be losing far less profit and actually saving money.
  3. It’s preventive. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” as the saying goes. Sometimes the problems that result in your equipment come from the usual types of wear and tear associated with prolonged use. While easily fixable, you can’t always detect these problems independently. An infrared scan can pick up on any components within your equipment that have aged beyond repair and need to be replaced.

There are many other reasons to commission an infrared electrical systems survey. To learn more about the benefits for your commercial facility and the variety of needs infrared thermography can fulfill, contact us.

Identify problems early with an infrared moisture survey.

When Is the Best Time for a Roof Inspection?

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Find trouble spots with infrared inspection services.

Infrared inspection services can show you trouble spots.

Identify problems early with an infrared moisture survey.

An infrared moisture survey can identify problems early.

If you are a long-time property owner, you are probably well aware of the consequences that come with your commercial facility changing with age. Many issues gradually begin to crop up over time, some small and some piling into much larger issues requiring more attention and money than you ever imagined. You may be expecting this to unfold with your equipment more than anything else. However, the structure of your facility requires just as much attention and care as the machinery your commercial facility shelters.

This holds especially true for your facility’s roof, which much like the rest of your building’s structure, is highly vulnerable to the elements. Weather can chip away at your roof over time, leading to leaks and other forms of decay. An infrared roof moisture survey can help with the problem, but figuring out when you should seek out an inspection can be perplexing.

So When Should I Request a Roof Inspection?

There are, in fact, several conditions under which it is best to hire some form of infrared inspection services. They include:

  1. At three year intervals. This is a rule of thumb for the general well being of your roof and is one of the best methods for detecting problems early. Consider it part of your building’s maintenance, much like cleaning it and looking after your building’s equipment. If you make inspections part of your building’s routine, it will be much easier to catch any issues before they have the chance to unfold into something far worse and more costly for you and your business.
  2. As part of your building’s routine surface inspections. It never hurts to be as thorough as possible. There is no strict time limit for this because the time between inspections generally depends on the condition of your commercial property and the type of work performed there. We recommend you follow at least the above suggestion unless your surface inspections take place in shorter spans of time.
  3. Before the most severe seasonal weather arrives and again once it passes. The more severe the weather in your area is, the more damage your roof may take. This goes for heat and snow because both present their own detriments to roofing structures. Thermal issues, normally caused by the quick transition between summer heat and rain, and UV radiation can wreak havoc during summer. However, during winter, your roof becomes vulnerable to storms and the winter cold. It is best to make sure your roof is equipped to handle the weather, and once the seasons change, take care of any damage done.

At Infrared Consulting Services, we specialize in the performance and science of infrared thermography. We can help you maintain your roof’s health, as well as inform you of any developing issues you should look into. For more information on what we can do to help maintain your commercial property, contact us.

How Can An Infrared Roof Moisture Survey Keep Your Business Dry?

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Flat roofing systems often make it more difficult to detect moisture issues, which can have a negative effect on the rest of the structure. This makes getting an infrared roof moisture survey, using infrared thermography, a necessity before you replace the roof or even before you choose to purchase a building. Armed with this information, you will be able to choose whether you need to go through the expensive process of replacing this type of roof.

Identify areas of moisture with infrared thermography.

Infrared thermography shows areas of moisture.

What Happens to Your Roof?

Over time, the waterproofing layers installed on the roof can grow thin or may develop cracks that let moisture in. This can create a vast number of issues with the rest of your structure, many of which will be difficult to notice until the damage is extreme. Some of the issues these moisture leaks can cause include:

  • Interior damage to the building
  • Hazardous conditions for occupants
  • Mold growth
  • Corrosion of metal components
  • Degradation of the building
  • Added weight to the structure

Many of these issues may not be evident in their early stages, which makes infrared inspection services a necessity, especially before you purchase a building.

Infrared Thermography

When you get an infrared roof moisture survey, you will learn where moisture exists in a roof and whether the issue requires repairs or a full replacement of the roof. This non-invasive test uses infrared technology to measure the temperature of the roof to map it out thermally. Areas with higher temperatures are more likely to contain moisture than cooler spots. This is because higher density materials retain the heat from the sun for longer.

Identify Trouble Areas

The best part about using infrared thermography to inspect a flat commercial roof for damage is it can quickly and easily determine the exact locations of issues. Because a full roof replacement is such a costly job, it’s best for businesses to get repairs done first, if possible. Infrared inspection services can provide a clear map of where the problem areas lie and how large they are so roofing contractors can evaluate the condition of the roof and determine if repair is the best option. This ensures businesses don’t spend unnecessary funds on a replacement.

If you’re considering buying a commercial building with a flat roof or you already own one, an infrared roof moisture survey is an absolute necessity. These surveys will use the latest in infrared thermography to identify areas of the roof that may contain excess moisture that can lead to structural issues if not resolved. When you can clearly identify problem areas, you will be able to make the right decision regarding whether a replacement is necessary or a repair will provide the changes needed to protect the structure of your building.

If you’re interested in infrared inspection services, contact us. Our experienced team of professionals can inspect your roof and supply a thorough report to help you make the right decisions.