Thermal Imaging - a few questions

tails_naf

Hi.

I have recently moved into a house, timber frame, and the spec of the house said that the walls would be 0.18u.

I have one room in the house that is quite cold (especially these days).
It is a large room (master bedroom), but I am wondering if some of the insulation was omitted and is causing a large heat loss. The TF kit was a closed panel, so all the inside walls were slabbed when the frame arrived on site - so if insulation was omitted, I'd never have seen it.

I assume thermal imaging would be perfect in this case - but I have the following questions -

1) can it tell what kind of heat loss is occuring - i.e. would it be able to detect the nett u-value of the walls?
2) if 1) is not possible, I suppose seeing cold-spots would indicate possible locations where insulation was omitted/poorly fit - is this correct?
3) Is it possible to rent these thermal imaging cameras?

If anyone can recommend someone doing thermal imaging / rental in the cork/tipperary area, please let me know.

Thanks!

MicktheMan

tails_naf wrote: »

Hi.

I have recently moved into a house, timber frame, and the spec of the house said that the walls would be 0.18u.

I have one room in the house that is quite cold (especially these days).
It is a large room (master bedroom), but I am wondering if some of the insulation was omitted and is causing a large heat loss. The TF kit was a closed panel, so all the inside walls were slabbed when the frame arrived on site - so if insulation was omitted, I'd never have seen it.

I assume thermal imaging would be perfect in this case - but I have the following questions -

1) can it tell what kind of heat loss is occuring - i.e. would it be able to detect the nett u-value of the walls?
2) if 1) is not possible, I suppose seeing cold-spots would indicate possible locations where insulation was omitted/poorly fit - is this correct?
3) Is it possible to rent these thermal imaging cameras?

If anyone can recommend someone doing thermal imaging / rental in the cork/tipperary area, please let me know.

Thanks!

1. The camera can't but an experienced thermographer should be able to give a good indication of whats happening. Also an experienced therographer will have other tools in his toolbag to discover whats going on.
2. TI will find insulation weaknesses, no question.
3. I dont know ... I wouldn't rent mine anyway:). Remember not all ti cameras are the same and the cheaper ones (those that may be rentable) would possible be quite low spec and would not be capable of doing the job. For instance, you can get cameras for inspecting electrical installations etc but these would be unsuitable for building inspections.

Also remember that heat loss is a 2 sided coin (insulation/air tightness). Both need to be checked to determine heat loss mechanisms.

PM sent.

tails_naf

A few things to note:

I had an air-tightness test done before plastering and got 2.9 (not great, but some big 'holes' items were patched as a result, but no re-test since, as naturally the $ aren't flowing these days).

The room in question is quite large - master bedroom - and about 6mx6m, but with 4.5m height (valutled ceileing).
Roof area is roughly 45m2 (due to angles), and should be 0.12u, and exposed north-facing front wall area is 30-40m2 - with windows, I roughly worked out a max or 300-400watt heat loss with 20C differential.

However, last night it was cold - -5 I'd say, and we turned on a fan heater, 1.2kwatt, but the room could only achieve 16c. So it looks like were pumping in 1200 watts, when it should only need 300-400!

Any comments on this? Could the insulation be really that bad, or are my calcs way off?

d'Oracle

tails_naf wrote: »

A few things to note:

I had an air-tightness test done before plastering and got 2.9 (not great, but some big 'holes' items were patched as a result, but no re-test since, as naturally the $ aren't flowing these days).

The room in question is quite large - master bedroom - and about 6mx6m, but with 4.5m height (valutled ceileing).
Roof area is roughly 45m2 (due to angles), and should be 0.12u, and exposed north-facing front wall area is 30-40m2 - with windows, I roughly worked out a max or 300-400watt heat loss with 20C differential.

However, last night it was cold - -5 I'd say, and we turned on a fan heater, 1.2kwatt, but the room could only achieve 16c. So it looks like were pumping in 1200 watts, when it should only need 300-400!

Any comments on this? Could the insulation be really that bad, or are my calcs way off?

Maybe Radiative losses through the North wall and windows?

Maybe thermal mass of the wall?
Any idea where the insulation is?

Is the insulation in the ceiling bridged?

Just a couple of other things you should think of.