Name the Top 10 Reasons to go Thermal

[ldapkus]

Originally Posted by dvalley

John,

I must be doing something wrong...

How did you recover the full cost of an IR camera in a few months?

Did you purchase one of those cheap IR cameras?

Yeah John let's hear it. I spent $6000 on a camera and almost $2000 on certification. I sure didn't recoup $8,000 in a couple months.....Just sayin'.

[Billy Boerner]

From what I understand John books one inspection a day and collects close to a grand for it. He spends up to 8 hours at one house and this price includes Infra Red. I'm also told the man is booked 5 to 6 days every week and this info did not come from John.

[David P. Valley]

Originally Posted by bboerner

From what I understand John books one inspection a day and collects close to a grand for it. He spends up to 8 hours at one house and this price includes Infra Red. I'm also told the man is booked 5 to 6 days every week and this info did not come from John.

Billy,

I'm just as busy if not more, but we are talking recouping the costs of his infrared camera with fees from infrared services only. Not the fees he collects from home inspections.

[Billy Boerner]

Originally Posted by dvalley

Billy,

I'm just as busy if not more, but we are talking recouping the costs of his infrared camera with fees from infrared services only. Not the fees he collects from home inspections.

Ok i see. I know a well known home inspector who uses the cam and charges an additional $100 per inspection if people want it included and he states he's made his money back ten fold. Says atleast half take him up on his offer.

[Bob Elliott]

I wonder how much advertising I could get for $8000.00 ?

This is the only area where everyone pushes you to spend and mortgage the house.

Nobody says get an expensive computer,moisture meter ,etc;

That being said I will jump in when I go commercial.

[ldapkus]

Originally Posted by bboerner

From what I understand John books one inspection a day and collects close to a grand for it. He spends up to 8 hours at one house and this price includes Infra Red. I'm also told the man is booked 5 to 6 days every week and this info did not come from John.

John spends 12 hours a day on the message board arguing with Joe and those other idiots.. I really doubt anyone spends 8 hours at one inspection (including an IR scan) unless a 4 hour nap is included. You really don't believe everything you read here do you???

[David P. Valley]

Originally Posted by bboerner

Ok i see. I know a well known home inspector who uses the cam and charges an additional $100 per inspection if people want it included and he states he's made his money back ten fold. Says atleast half take him up on his offer.

I've been asked many times to perform an infrared scan on Buyers prospective homes. I charge an additional $175.00 to $200.00 with no report (a simple walk through looking at the IR images on my screen). If they want a professional report, I charge $300.00 if I'm performing their home inspection.

But...I still did not recoup my camera costs from these IR scans in a few months. It takes quite a while to recoup thousands of dollars.

[Joe Funderburk, CMI]

I would love to see some actual numbers about cost recovery. Saying "I made $10,000 last month using my IR camera" isn't convincing when I can make $10K without one. However, I'd be more willing to invest in the technology if someone could please convince me that it has increased their business/profit. Send me a PM or email. Curious minds want to know.

[Billy Boerner]

Originally Posted by jfunderburk

I would love to see some actual numbers about cost recovery. Saying "I made $10,000 last month using my IR camera" isn't convincing when I can make $10K without one. However, I'd be more willing to invest in the technology if someone could please convince me that it has increased their business/profit. Send me a PM or email. Curious minds want to know.

Regardless how you look at it if people hire you to perform the IR at an additional charge you'll eventually fall out of red back into green once you recover your initial investment. How fast is the question and know one can truly answer that. It's all about how well you market the product and how many times you sell the service. I bet it will take about 2 to 3 yrs to to start seeing green on this investment however once your paid off it's all pure profit from there. If I was going to buy anything big for this business this would be it. I've been called to do large jobs before asking if I had IR.

[Jason Kaylor]

I have personally done a job that would pay for just about any camera. We are going to be buying a short wave imager in the next few months. The cost on it is approx $60k, and no I do not get short waves at a discount.

There have been many of us commercial and industrial guys preaching on these boards for a long time that the money really isn't in residential. There are ways to make money using IR in residential, it just takes longer as Bill stated. The mentality of "I am a home inspector and own an infrared camera" has to cease. You are now two businesses. An infrared business and a home inspection business.

How many of you guys do mold, IAQ, radon and whatever else? I doubt you throw those in to your normal home inspection, and I bet you market it somewhat different as well. Infrared is the same way, it is a seperate business.

If you guys look around at the home inspectors that use infrared to make a profit, they also do commercial electrical, equine, marine, scientific, flat roofs and the list goes on.

Technically John should throw his training revenue in to his infrared revenue. I am sure at one point a long time ago John decided to purchase a camera and get level I training to add more services to his home inspection business. Now he can probably buy a camera everytime he runs a large class, if he was motivated to do so.

JJ

[William Warner]

Nice post JJ and a lot of truth to it IMO.

On the flip side that most don't consider is that a residential application will have some aspect of almost every application you have mentioned from industrial to commercial to electrical to flat roof to scientific and more. Residential applications aren't something to merely be approached lightly with an IR gun and a moisture meter. They are in a sense a conglomerate of everything that IR technology has been designed around. In my experience, understanding some aspect of most of the other applications is paramount to performing a residential inspection with IR.

Again my opinion but others will disagree.

[bdoles2]

I bought mine to cater to an entirely different customer base. Not just home inspections. I use my IR camera on every inspection, it's part of my tool arsenal and not just another "Add-on" for my client.

The customers that actually call me the most for IR are property managers (of commercial properties, i.e. condos, office buildings, apartments). It's those customers that have made recuperating my $$ spent on tools/training easier. Their properties are bigger, and they also have bigger wallets.

[John McKenna]

Originally Posted by dvalley

John,

I must be doing something wrong...

How did you recover the full cost of an IR camera in a few months?

Did you purchase one of those cheap IR cameras?

I use the FLIR BCAM.

[John McKenna]

Originally Posted by ldapkus

John spends 12 hours a day on the message board arguing with Joe and those other idiots.. I really doubt anyone spends 8 hours at one inspection (including an IR scan) unless a 4 hour nap is included. You really don't believe everything you read here do you???

I am not on the message board 12 hours a day. You are indeed
the proof that people should not believe what they read (from you).

[John McKenna]

I started out making an extra $2000 to $2500 p/mth on IR alone.
My volume at that time was brisk and it did not take long to recover
my IR cost.