I am about to enter the commercial side of inspections, as well as the thermal imaging field. I took my Thermography I with Snell Group. I have plenty of experience as a home inspector.
My problem is pricing. I have no idea how I should set my prices: by the square foot? How much should I add for thermal imaging? Are there minima (or just one minimum only) out there?
What if the inspection is only for thermal imaging? What is used as a base for pricing.
I inspect commercial buildings everyday of the week, if you would like to fly to Phoenix and follow us around your more than welcome to.
I separate the services, but everyone has their own way of doing business.
My fees start at .10 a foot, the average is .20 per foot for the major systems and components only, if they want ADA, a Phase One ESA, etc, we add these fees to the baseline.
Thermal Imaging depends on the scope of work, if your inspecting 10 panels or 100 it makes a huge difference.
Basically for thermal imaging you should be charging at least $1,000.00 per day if you have a quality Radiometer.
Inspected this building today, my fee was $2,479.00, I was there for five hours, alone.
Seem to get a lot of these questions from those that attended Snell.
Maybe you should contact them and see if they can put some stuff together like several of the others in that business have done…
Arnold, go to the nacbi.com website. It is the group that you want to hook up with to start and grow a commercial inspection and thermal imaging business.Good knowledgeable people that are there to help. I plan on going the same direction as you and will be joining NACBI at the end of the month.
Arnold, Dale Duffy is the originator of NACBI, for thermal and commercial, you will not find a better association to be in. There are a lot of professional people on that site who are very helpful.
I took the Flir / ITC Level I class. From the guys that I have talked to that attended Snells OR have taken a class at each … I should have taken Snells class.
I also came out with lots of questions about how to price service, etc.
Although nice guys, their focus was on Flir equipment and sales. For the 3-4 of us in class without a Flir WE got little in help learning IR cameras.
I took 4 ITC courses and NEVER heard anyone from Flir “push” product (except to tell you what is available out there, and so happens to be Flir because that is where you are sitting).
Should they not give out this information to all the others that own Flir? Training on Flir software was “optional” and not part of the course. Guys from the calibration lab and service department who showed up in class to “inform and answer our questions” were also not part of the class.
Now they may not know your camera and the training is at a Flir production facility (used to be), but I have seen nothing but an attempt to support all equipment that comes to class.
My Lvl I class (with our Larry Kage), the instructor could quote the speck of every camera ever made (by anybody).
Not questioning your statement, you just had a bad experience that one time (or you were a little sensitive being 1 of 3 red headed step kids in class)!
In the 4 courses I took, not once did anyone help me with any of my 3 Flir cameras!
Did I miss out on something?
I did see a bunch in Building Science class that still had the packing material on their cameras when they arrived to class! Now that slowed things down a bit!
Flir had all kinds of video on line on working your camera, doesn’t Fluke do the same? I would think so…
I attended 3 different Flir schools and never had Flir cameras pushed at me. There were several other manufacturers cameras in the classes and the instructors help them when they were stuck with something in the use of there camera
Same here, I took my Building Science Thermographer course in Chicago and Level 1 in Kansas City. They have a sales rep give a quick sales pitch. Instructors were not pushy to sell the product and were knowledgeable of all other brands of cameras brought to class.
I also took my level one and two with ITC same instructor both classes Bob Rogers and was highly satisfied with the course Bob did not push any one brand of cameras.
Back to the original post of pricing I just had a lengthy conversation with my grandson 19 years of age and a rattle brain like most 19 year olds thinks with his little head rather than his big head???. I spent 3 hours on a job and brought home $500.00 and his statement was it takes me 6 weeks to make that much money on my job (Fry cook) my Reply was employers pay people for what they know and what they can do. I have invested 49 years of education on my job how much have you invested
Its goes the same in thermography clients pay you for what you know and what you can produce. It requires a investment of education and proper equipment to earn the big bucks. No instant gradification in this business
