Our Infrared Water Detection Survey includes the scanning and a report. Water intrusion into commercial and residential buildings can come from many different locations and sources. From faulty roofing, poor workmanship, ice damming issues, siding and window problems, caulking breakdowns, to using inferior building materials. Infrared can see your water intrusion problems by the thermal signature the water leaves beneath or on top of building surfaces. Infrared quickly and accurately locates wet areas for identification by ‘seeing it’, thermally.

You don’t waste time, or money, unnecessarily tracking down water issues using conventional inspection methods. If you have, or ever had, a flooding issue infrared will tell you if it has been successfully dried and the issue remediated. We visually show you with IR images if your problem has been corrected. With an infrared scan you have the ability to show your contractor exactly where a water problem is located and what it looks like. This saves the contractor time in searching for the water problem and with material costs from making unnecessary repairs.

Here are some easy water finds. Water shows as the darker color in these interior shots.

Figure 1.	Figure 2.

Figure 3.	Figure 4.

A couple of tougher one’s to locate.

Figure 5. A Baseboard Find
	Figure 6. Pipe Behind Wall

In Figure 5 a contractor finishing an addition had a water issue with the AC Unit. He knew he was losing water from the unit but couldn’t locate it. He retraced the lines as best as possible but was unable to locate the line leak. Not wanting to waste more time or rip out any of the new construction unless he had to, he called for an IR scan. We retraced the buried lines Behind the walls and found the leak in a clothe’s closet behind the baseboard sheetrock. When installing the closet’s baseboard the water supply line got zipped by a finishing nail. This was a good find and a testament to a good infrared scan.

I used two vertically ‘stitched’ infrared images in Figure 6. Another plumbing contractor had an issue with a new condo build in an older building in Boston. The water issue was located from the top IR image and the bottom image was added to show the extent of the water damage. At the top of the image you see a horizontal purplish line. That’s where a pipe inside the wall had been zipped by a sheetrock screw. The purplish color below that line shows the water damage that resulted and how much wall material needed replacement. Figure 6 above was another good example of a wet wall find.

The water pipe was behind the wall and a drywall screw pierced the pipe, when the screw rusted and broke away the leak started (see the referral letter under Ryland’s Plumbing).

Here’s another great! example of a water problem located with IR. An addition to a summer home on the beach in New Hampshire had this water problem. We see the sloped ceiling of the new addition and to the right of the image is a sheetrock wall covering the chimney which was originally on the outside of the previously existing home. The exterior roof/chimney flashing was the issue. The homeowner’s contractor could see the water damage and knew what corrective action to take in terms of flashing and with how much wallboard would be needed for the interior repair since he could ‘see‘ how much of the wall and ceiling were wet.

Figure 7.

The Infrared Report and Follow-up

For water and leak survey situations we go into your home or commercial building and scan for all of the moisture damage, then we provide you with a documented report of the findings. You can use this report as proof for an insurance claim or a comparison to a post inspection survey to determine if your severe water issue has been successfully remediated.