Thermal Imaging Survey – What does it tell us?

By Tim Hess

Have you wondered where heat escapes from in your home? Climate change and rising energy bills make it more important to reduce usage of gas or other fuels. Have you considered having a thermal imaging survey? Your first impression would be that a thermal imaging survey will help to find areas of heat loss and tell you where to put your effort to add insulation and how to make you’re your home more comfortable. You are right up to a point. Thermal imaging surveys are part of the process of finding out how to save energy but it is only one step in the process of finding out what you can do to improve your home and make it more comfortable.
No home is the same. They all have different levels of insulation, in windows, doors, walls and floors and that’s even if you live in a street of similar houses. Homes come in all types, bungalows, stone cottages, semi detached, terrace, modern construction etc.. A thermal imaging survey tells you the temperature of the wall and the heat being emitted from it. For those who remember their physics, it provides a reading of the heat emitted as infra red.

​Our cameras are very accurate we can work out the temperature of one section of wall to another with an accuracy of 0.1’ C. But what does that tell you. Here in this window has a temperature of between 6.2 and 5.9’C. Is that good? Well if the temperature outside at the time is minus 10’C then perhaps not. If the outside temperature is 5’C then perhaps it is. It depends on the weather conditions, the outside temperature wind conditions and the position of the building in terms of wind and sun.

The truth is that a thermal imaging survey can’t tell you how much heat is being lost from your building. To work out how much heat is being lost using a model is a complex calculation. The simplest way of working out how much heat is lost from your house is to look at your energy bills. The next best way to do it is to carry out a SAP heat loss calculation (Standard Assessment Procedure) by a Retrofit Assessor. 

​The chart above shows how your house might compare relative to other houses in UKs housing stock. Look at your heating bill, work out your floor area and see how your house compares.
A thermal imaging survey, won’t tell you how much heat your loosing, however it will tell you which parts of your house is losing more heat than others. At Upper Don Community Energy we have been delivering high quality thermal imaging surveys for over 2 years and our volunteers deliver reports for as little as £5 (usual cost in the market is £100 to £200). Additionally, our volunteers are trained in retrofitting and will provide information to help you decide how to solve the problems we find in your home. Typical recommendations have been to improve pipe lagging under floors, replace windows, address areas where wall insulation is missing.
A thermal imaging survey is a simple way to look at where heat being lost from your home. The  results from our thermal imaging surveys describe how to interpret the images, giving an understanding what this means in terms of where heat is being lost and how you can improve your building's insulation.