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Wading Through the Water.... |
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Written by mikeSITS
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Monday, 05 November 2007 |
By Wade Brown
Accu-Red, Inc.
Here’s a good example of why a home inspector should use infrared…
The homeowner contacted us to conduct an infrared inspection prior to the final closing of their home. Permission from the builder’s superintendent was secured prior to the inspection. The two-story home has approximately 3,500 square feet of living space.
After completing inspection of first floor, we moved to the second floor. We scanned right and left upon arrival at the upstairs landing and to the left at the entrance to a bedroom we found a wet area (see Figure 1).
 Figure 1 - click for larger image
Upon entering the bedroom, we could see that there was a large damp area, covering nearly 75 square feet of floor space (see Figure 2), running from the bathroom into the bedroom and out into the hallway. Coincidentally, the builder’s moisture consultants were also conducting their routine moisture inspection with electronic moisture meters at the same time that the infrared inspection was taking place.
 Figure 2a - click for larger image  Figure 2a - click for larger image
The moisture consultants entered the room and walked directly through the area (see footprints indicated by arrows in Figure 2), inspected the bedroom and bathroom and exited the affected area with no indication of a moisture problem. (The view from the bathroom is seen on Figure 3.) Faulty plumbing under the bathroom sink turned out to be the cause of the leak.
 Figure 3 - click for larger image
Moisture meters are solely dependent on the limitations of the five natural human senses, so had they been bare-footed, they probably would have noticed the water under their feet. Moisture meters alone without a trained and observant infrared thermographer CANNOT produce reliable and thorough inspection results. The two technologies go hand in hand and compliment one another to produce excellent results.
Wade Brown is President of Accu-Red, Inc., a Jacksonville, FL based infrared service company.
Website: http://www.accured.com/ |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 08 November 2007 )
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