Thermal Imaging for Free!

Lookee here boys and girls, don’t pay $500 for a C2 camera when you can get it for free on your phone.

Look at all of the programmers that have found high you can use your smart phone to do all your thermal imaging work!

You can compete with the big boys! With no overhead. No training required.

Woo-Hoo! Now we’re talkin’!!! :ack:

And that is just for android!

David …

Am I hearing you right. Are there areas where home inspectors get paid for using their IR instead of the way it seems to be done in KC.

An inspector buys the $250-$350 IR for their iphone or smart phone then advertises that along with their $299 inspection up to a 3,500sf house YOU get FREE … IR.

Then when they get YOUR name and call and they find out that the 3,500sf home inspection with you is $569 and the IR is more … They act like you’re a robber.

Yes Dan…

And they are few and far between! (And I am not one of them either).

These camera owners are cutting their own throat, and ours. Just like home inspectors.

They all wonder why I get so hostile to their inadequacies as they spread their inabilities across the industry.

Nobody can pay $5000 for thermal imaging camera, never mind the cost of training required to do it right. Just like their home inspection, they want to skim on by and make claims that they can’t back up and then come here and wonder why they are courting litigation.

So far, there is little litigation associated with thermal imaging and home inspections. However this is because no one will sue you about something they don’t understand in the first place. The general public is becoming much more savvy with thermal imaging and all these claims of moisture in the ceiling that aren’t, will start coming out of camera owners pocketbooks.

These are the inspectors that can’t seem to read and understand the inspection standards, never mind the laws of physics, psychrometrics and thermodynamics associated with thermal imaging.

To be perfectly honest with you, I can’t make a buck on thermal imaging when associated with a home inspection either. I must separate the two.

And that sir is the key.
Many look at thermal imaging as if “if you build it they will come”, but if you don’t talk about thermal imaging at all and use your home inspection as a base site evaluation you can sell thermal imaging as a follow-up to document and analyze the issues identified in the home inspection and your client does not associate the combination of the two.

“Recommend further evaluation by a roofing contractor” needs to be turned into, let me perform a thermal imaging scan on this apparent roof leak.

Well, it’s hard enough to get $569 fees just for the home inspection, when you’re competing with $299.

I use thermal imaging on practically every home inspection that I do regardless. It is basically a high-efficiency flashlight! And that’s what everyone else here is doing.

If they continue to do this, they will continue to get what they always got. They can’t even recover from a $250 investment in an IR Camera from what the net is out of the home inspection with IR, never mind a $25,000 camera.

I have a 794,000 ft.² building evaluation tonight off of a 14,000 ft.² flat roof inspection that I did last week. The roofing contractor was looking for roof leaks and I turned it into a refrigerated building performance issue. So you can even do this type of conversion on the big jobs.

I get paid to use my professional equipment and training.

Thermography is a profession and professionals aren’t free. It’s analogous to photography. Everyone has a cell phone camera, yet people seek out professionals for their wedding photos. Why: because your cousin with the cell phone doesn’t know how to set up the shot, how to tune his camera for the situation, doesn’t have the equipment to produce reliable imagery and doesn’t know crap about the post processing required to get professional results out of the images. Now, add to that the training required to properly interpret what’s on those thermographic images. They have only one opportunity to get it right. If you choose wrong, you’re stuck with the outcome.

Prospective clients understand the difference in value between free and professional service when it’s put in that kind of context.

Does that mean my FLUKE Ti300 IS OBSOLETE/VINTAGE?:eek:
1: That **Temperature measurement range **(not calibrated below -10 °C) -20 °C to +650 °C (-4 °F to +1202 °F) are of no more concern that, hmmm… open span and level between (-4 °F to +1202 °F)
2: That Temperature measurement accuracy ± 2 °C or 2 % (at 25 °C nominal, whichever is greater) are a thing of the past?
3: Or that That On-screen emissivity correction (by number and table) is no longer useful?
4: And Thermal sensitivity (NETD) ≤ 0.05 °C at 30 °C target temp (50 mK) is skewed having little bearing of a thermogram?
5: And Total pixel counts, like 43,200 are just a sales ploy and
6: Infrared spectral band like 7.5 μm to 14 μm (long wave) have little meaning?
7: With Spatial resolution (IFOV) 1.75 mRad being relatively useless as compared to that free model you posted?

Well David, now I feel I have been politically Trumped.
Was I oversold a product that under delivers like the TrumpCare disaster that will give the wealthy the biggest tax relief just past yesterday?
Will poorer, older sick clients be charged more by insurers to insure the rich that own their insurance make more?

I for one will continue to invest in good technical equipment so the rich or poor, male or female clients of ***any race of nationality ***can feel assured I am working for them using my Liberal thermal imaging equipment.:slight_smile:

If you feel the same, reach out to your local state representative, attend town hall meeting and make your voices count!!!
Demand the president be impeached for conspiring with RUSSIA.

Take your BS to the NFE section!!!

And/or a Psychiatrist! That post was certainly WAY out there! :roll:

Don’t sweat it. Trump isn’t cutting off your meds. Do try to keep on top of them. Perhaps someone else can lay them out for you daily and make sure you take them to help you avoid those frequent bouts of mental incontinence you seem to be afflicted with.

What is actually interesting is that he is a Canadian, living in Montreal, having a melt down because Trump was elected POTUS. I certainly hope he is not representative of Canadians. :roll:

I’m sure the Canadians are hoping the same