Critiqe My IR Report

[David P. Valley]

Hello Thermographers,

I had posted a sample of my first IR Energy Report elsewhere on this MB and had requests (from that particular thread) to critique the report.

Absolutely. Critique the hell out of it...PLEASE. I could learn something that I or others (here on this MB) would like to improve on.

I'm just striving to keep specific threads in order and would like this particular thread to be dedicated to critiquing IR reports.

Well, here it is.....SAMPLE ENERGY AUDIT IR REPORT

I realize that there are images in this report that are not perfect in any way. This is simply my first report that I had submitted to ITC to complete my BS certification process. They approved this report and did recommend (for future reports) that I leave out the date, time and spot temperature if the issue in question does not relate to what I'm trying to report. I have now corrected that particular issue on my future reports. Also, my recommendations that I made on this particular report have been corrected already but I would like to hear your comments.

Also, the lousy black and white pictures were taken before I participated in the Level 1 course. I know they are not the greatest of all IR images. There are mistakes that were made, but I still want you to critique everything you see wrong, so others can improve upon their IR reporting style.

GO FOR IT....and thank you for your time.

[Roy D. Cooke, Sr]

Thanks David we are trying to learn this new step in the inspection industry.
To me not having seen other reports ,I am impressed .
...Cookie

[David P. Valley]

Originally Posted by rcooke

Thanks David we are trying to learn this new step in the inspection industry.
To me not having seen other reports ,I am impressed .
...Cookie

Thank you, Roy. This IR reporting is new to todays R/E market and I would like others to see what reporting styles are absolutely needing help.

But your job (now) is to find a defect in this report, no matter what....PLEASE.

Slam this report (with comments) as hard as you can, so others will learn from my mistakes.

Thank you, kindly.

[David P. Valley]

I'm simply dragging David Andeson's comments over here....

Besides the defects/photographs section I prefer to have other specific sections as well. This is mostly to prevent liability issues between myself and the client.

These may include but are not limited to...

Your cover page:

general introduction: this section describes what thermography is, its limitations and expectations. I generally include important information that was covered in the inspection agreement/contract as well just to reiterate those often misconstrued notions that lawyers come up with.

environmental conditions: this is the existing conditions, interior and exterior at the time of testing. They should also contain weather records for the period (whether the outdoor ambient air temperature was rising or falling, dew point temperature is helpful to determine the sensitivity of the scan).

General description of testing: this describes the reasons testing is being performed and the expectations from testing.

client discussion: this describes any verbal conversation of the clients concerns and reasons for conducting the testing. Gather all the information about any occurrences that cause the client to contact you.

Deficiencies/comments section: your inspection observations, scans and digital photographs.

summary: this ties all information from above together reporting the outcome of testing. Recommendations should be outlined here. "Where to go from here" type scenario.

[dharris]

Originally Posted by dvalley

Thank you, Roy. This IR reporting is new to todays R/E market and I would like others to see what reporting styles are absolutely needing help.

But your job (now) is to find a defect in this report, no matter what....PLEASE.

Slam this report (with comments) as hard as you can, so others will learn from my mistakes.

Thank you, kindly.

I can do that.
Seriously.
From my exp on new homes, The contractor or builder, often do not have a clue, or choose to not have a clue on the photos alone, it's benifical to state temps of other walls and temps of area identified.
The customer/contractor only see's blue areas, identifing the temp difference along with stating the area needs insulation [or?] gets their attention

[David P. Valley]

Besides the defects/photographs section I prefer to have other specific sections as well. This is mostly to prevent liability issues between myself and the client.

These may include but are not limited to...

Your cover page:

general introduction: this section describes what thermography is, its limitations and expectations. I generally include important information that was covered in the inspection agreement/contract as well just to reiterate those often misconstrued notions that lawyers come up with.

environmental conditions: this is the existing conditions, interior and exterior at the time of testing. They should also contain weather records for the period (whether the outdoor ambient air temperature was rising or falling, dew point temperature is helpful to determine the sensitivity of the scan).

General description of testing: this describes the reasons testing is being performed and the expectations from testing.

client discussion: this describes any verbal conversation of the clients concerns and reasons for conducting the testing. Gather all the information about any occurrences that cause the client to contact you.

Deficiencies/comments section: your inspection observations, scans and digital photographs.

summary: this ties all information from above together reporting the outcome of testing. Recommendations should be outlined here. "Where to go from here" type scenario.

Very good point David.

I do have the following on my reports it's just that I felt a sample report didn't need all the mumbo jumbo.

[David A. Andersen]

I cut the following from the other thread concerning inspection software. We don't need to discuss this further here, however it is a critique of the report in question and it's some of the information that it would normally try to include. Just so everything is in one place here.

These may include but are not limited to...

Your cover page:

general introduction: this section describes what thermography is, its limitations and expectations. I generally include important information that was covered in the inspection agreement/contract as well just to reiterate those often misconstrued notions that lawyers come up with.

environmental conditions: this is the existing conditions, interior and exterior at the time of testing. They should also contain weather records for the period (whether the outdoor ambient air temperature was rising or falling, dew point temperature is helpful to determine the sensitivity of the scan).

General description of testing: this describes the reasons testing is being performed and the expectations from testing.

client discussion: this describes any verbal conversation of the clients concerns and reasons for conducting the testing. Gather all the information about any occurrences that cause the client to contact you.

Deficiencies/comments section: your inspection observations, scans and digital photographs.

summary: this ties all information from above together reporting the outcome of testing. Recommendations should be outlined here. "Where to go from here" type scenario.

David beat me to the post!!!

[David P. Valley]

Originally Posted by dharris

I can do that.
Seriously.
From my exp on new homes, The contractor or builder, often do not have a clue, or choose to not have a clue on the photos alone, it's benifical to state temps of other walls and temps of area identified.
The customer/contractor only see's blue areas, identifing the temp difference along with stating the area needs insulation [or?] gets their attention

Great point, Dan.

I agree with having the temperature scale visible on all pictures, but I'm referring to the temps that are automatically embedded (by the camera options) on the bottom of the pic.

[David P. Valley]

Originally Posted by dandersen

I cut the following from the other thread concerning inspection software. We don't need to discuss this further here, however it is a critique of the report in question and it's some of the information that it would normally try to include. Just so everything is in one place here.

These may include but are not limited to...

Your cover page:

general introduction: this section describes what thermography is, its limitations and expectations. I generally include important information that was covered in the inspection agreement/contract as well just to reiterate those often misconstrued notions that lawyers come up with.

environmental conditions: this is the existing conditions, interior and exterior at the time of testing. They should also contain weather records for the period (whether the outdoor ambient air temperature was rising or falling, dew point temperature is helpful to determine the sensitivity of the scan).

General description of testing: this describes the reasons testing is being performed and the expectations from testing.

client discussion: this describes any verbal conversation of the clients concerns and reasons for conducting the testing. Gather all the information about any occurrences that cause the client to contact you.

Deficiencies/comments section: your inspection observations, scans and digital photographs.

summary: this ties all information from above together reporting the outcome of testing. Recommendations should be outlined here. "Where to go from here" type scenario.

Sorry David, I beat you to it.

[David A. Andersen]

David, the first thing that I noticed was your use of "air infiltration". This can be a matter of semantics, and I don't want to go there again as we did on another post however it is my perception that air infiltration is air that actually enters the living space of the house. Some of your examples mentioned air infiltration which is occurring within the finished wall. This should probably be specified in the report.

Air infiltration has a specific thermal pattern.

[David A. Andersen]

This is the first picture I took when I turned on the camera in my office. It is an example of missing insulation. Missing insulation was verifiable.

I recommend that you do not suggest or speculate about insulation that is missing in a closed wall without further verification. This was one of those liability things that reached out and grabbed me.

Oops! I keep forgetting to compress my digital pics!

[jwortham1]

David,

Just my take, but since every photo is followed by your analysis of the photo and always contains the lines "Consider upgarding....." you may wish to just make a single blurb so the flow is easier. It's distracting to read the same recommendation over and over and detracts from what you are trying to point out.

[David A. Andersen]

On page 6 of your report you mention inadequate insulation above the window. It appears to me that this is due to the thermal density differences of the window header construction.

I don't think I have ever seen a header insulated (not that it couldn't be).

I would just like to point out that this is a potential situation that we will find in reports when level 3 thermographers do building science work without a full understanding of the structure. This is similar to taking infrared scans for a veterinarian. We can take this scan but the veterinarian must evaluate it.

Remember, when you do energy audits for contractors or industrial owners, work with them and their personnel. They built the thing and probably know better than most what it is a camera is seeing. You just need to describe/interpret what the thermal scan is depicting.

A lot of the scans in corners of the rooms showing temperature differential because of the volume of wood to construct the wall corner. This is mostly about thermal bridging. The quantity of BTU transfer in this particular case is probably quite insignificant but shows up extremely well in the thermal scan.

I would be looking for the air infiltration flair pattern (on the floor at the baseboard) or the enlarged spot like on page 3 for a significant deficiency.

Seeing this is a public forum, I'd like to make a note that during these mock inspections for ITC, we are grasping for anomalies to report on. However, I guess we should discuss the actual significance of these minor anomalies for clarification.

[David A. Andersen]

you may wish to just make a single blurb so the flow is easier.

Jeffrey, I like to make these recommendations in the "summary section" where we put it all together to paint an overall picture.

At this point, I don't know if Duel-View will allow pages of just text in the report. Can someone enlighten us on this?

[David P. Valley]

Originally Posted by jwortham1

David,

Just my take, but since every photo is followed by your analysis of the photo and always contains the lines "Consider upgarding....." you may wish to just make a single blurb so the flow is easier. It's distracting to read the same recommendation over and over and detracts from what you are trying to point out.

Yes, Jeff. I had thought the same and was waiting to hear from others.

From now on, recommendations are going to be in the summary of my report. It does get very repetitive and would annoy me if I kept reading the same thing over and over again. Thanks.