Nice training roof

Scanned this 19K roof last evening took an actual 1 hour and 5 minutes and we encountered every thing except moisture. This was a new roof and the contractor did a good job. Was able to get some good reflections for my son to see how to avoid reflections every thing on this roof wanted to reflect even the street lights.

We actually shot 111 images and will use a majority of them in the report

More images

Very cool Charley Thanks for sharing. Any chance you could explain some of what your seeing.

Not much explaining necessary the corner images give a good example of reflection from the wall back to the roof surface. Reflections move with the angle of the camera moisture does not. There is also a nice reflection from a shiny A/C unit, exhaust fan hoods and you name it. The round circles you see in most of the images are the metal clips holding down the substrate material that is beneath the EPDM surface material

Thanks Charley that"s what I was wondering if I was seeing I don’t do IR but I feel I would like it alot and have just taken some free courses to familiarize myself so I have an understanding of whats talked about when I get ready to jump in. It is so interesting.

IR is like alcohol its easy to get hooked had a strange situation this morning was looking for my usual shower pan leak. I saw the water at the corner of the stall and it was growing fast so I pulled the plug and let the water go down the drain and it continued to grow in size. This shower stall was back to back against the utility room washing machine connection and when I went into the utility room I could see water about 2 feet up the wall. So water does not flow up hill with out some help thus the shower pan was not leaking there had to be a pipe in the wall on the outlet side of the shower faucet leaking and I would not have caught it it without my IR

Both the bathroom and the utility room had floor covering and the moisture was beneath the floor cover and not visible to the naked eye

That is so cool. I can’t wait for summer to be over to start on these courses again. I look at some of the inspectors images around here (really bad) and I don’t want to be like them. Listening to you and a couple of the other guys seems like such a waste to buy a cheaper camera.

When you produce quality work with quality training and quality equipment its not hard to charge quality fees. I spent 45 minutes of daylight getting familiar with that roof to ensure my safety and my helpers safety and did the scan in 65 minutes, charged $1900.00 not to shabby for living in the middle of a cow pasture;-)

I used Ir to find this problem today in addition to the leak in the wall the electrical panel for the pool equipment had a 20 degree differential between the two service conductors and the amperage differential was only 1.1 amps Scotty we have a electrical problem :wink: I can not do a inspection with out my IR camera

So do you always use your IR camera for a H.I. and do you charge extra because of it and how do you figure how much more to ask? I know around here guys use them for there inspections and don’t charge more :roll:. I was looking at your website and saw that you do IR scans on horses also, how do you figure a cost to do that? Sorry for all the questions just trying to understand so to be able to justify spending the money for school and a camera and I would also need to go with someone for a while to learn as well as how to write a report for a roof like you just did. I can’t see spending money on a good camera just to do a H.I.

Yes I use the IR camera on every inspection I do. I scan every electrical panel, every tiled shower stall, every cathedral ceiling for missing insulation and chimney flashing if it has been raining. These are my marketing tools for HI’s they are in every report and I mean every report.

I actually operate 3 separate business HI’s ,commercial building inspections and a separate IR business flat roofs and electrical panels are my main items. The quality of my IR camera will work for all three. I don’t use cheap grainy IR images in my reports

I really enjoyed these images Charlie, thanks for sharing! I’m actually just narrowing down my list to purchase an IR camera, any suggestions on a good “starter” unit? I’m hoping to find something in the $2,000-$4,000 mark. I know it won’t be enough later on down the road but for now I believe a Flir E8 or I’ve read great things about the Testo 875, what are your thoughts?

My best advice is don’t ruin your future IR reputation by starting with cheap IR images in a report and then down the road try to overcome a bad start. If your camera does not have at least 320X 240 resolution don’t put lessor quality images in a report you will be shooting your foot and your camera will end up for sale on E-bay

Thanks Charlie, I will most likely be contacting you in the future with any questions about things I find if that’s not too much of a hassle. I think I’ll be going with the Flir E8 then since it offers 320x240 and is a REALLY great price right now!

Now that is an unquantifiable comment Charley.
The E8 lacks many features.
I was told to avoid the E8 by a Level 3 teacher and Flir sales rep. because I want to do commercial.

Sorry for the edit.

I doubt I will get an answer.
no issues.
Old dogs and new tricks thing.

Charlie?
We went with Fluke’s TIR105R for our starting camera any suggestions or comments on this equipment? Thanks in advance

I think Fluke makes a good camera I just am not familiar with them. I attended one of their shows and actually handled one of the cameras but have never really used one to any extent . What I did not care for was the weight of the camera I had my hands on and I don’t remember which camera it was. When scanning roofs for 6 hours at one time weight makes a difference on the old back and neck

I can not speak for Charley but I think that is a nice entry level unit.
I own a Ti100.
Focus free will limit you so you have to manual focus anything less than 4’feet.
Level and span are adjustable.
The IFOV and everything else look the same as the Ti series except the thermal sensitivity is 80 milliK or .08 @30 degrees.
Min. auto parallax corrections approx 122 centimeters (48")
The max temp is lower than the TI series because it is used for building diagnostics.

A Nice camera. :smiley:

As expressed in past posts, I have my Ti100 for sale.

I know everyone says spend spend spend but there are to many unanswered questions.
If you get more work and you wish to upgrade then you can sell you unit to offset the new camera.

Personally I think you made a good choice.
May I ask you what price you paid?