Using A FLIR Thermal Camera To Save On Energy Bills

You make some interesting points - thanks

Can't you put some sort of insulation on the garage ceiling?

annual house audit especially the roof

In Suffolk the council has a number of these that it lends out to community groups. Great idea!

Please be careful with these kind of videos, as thermal cameras are only about 35-40% useful when not coupled with thermography understanding or training. For example chap mentions a number times about ‘losing heat’ when it’s not its air flow issues, Warm air rises because cold air being denser pushes the warm air up not down as he suggestions. Thermal convection is supposed to happen and air flow should have positive pressures upwards, and building design will take this into consideration. So don’t block it within the thermal,living envelope if you are not competent with such matters. If people just pass cheap and nasty thermal cameras about like the one demoed the likelihood will be people making repairs or alterations that they don’t need to make….

A while ago a friend trained as a home inspector under the then government scheme, which was subsequently watered down to provide EPCs. The first question I asked him was do you use thermal imaging cameras ; answer no! The EPC calculated the way it is essentially on the back of an envelope was a bit of a joke. Anhour weith a thermal imaging camera would have given a much better picture.

The Topcon TC 100 is about the same price as the Flir One, but has higher resolution, and a 25hz shutter speed (not 9hz as in the Flir) So may be better value...

Not sure anyone else has mentioned it but Octopus Energy do have these available to borrow but the current waiting list is massive.
Edit: should have watched to the end :D as above, yes, Octopus do still have the scheme in place.

Also useful for balancing radiators to increase energy efficiency!

You can probably get an injectable insulation product to go into the existing plasterboard wall, if you don't want to rip it down.

EVM, Before you pass this device on, can you do a thermal survey of the house to identify Phantom Loads? Things that get left in standby and are not needed from hour to hour. Things like phone chargers, laptop chargers etc leap out at you! Maybe demonstrate against the smart meter to show real savings.

Maybe you could help tell me if it's worth investing in this ,
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just offer to other households a heat loss survey for £10 and 20 houses later made your money back

!!!!!!!! ANDY I NEED TO STOP YOU THERE !!!!!!!!!!!

I work for a fire and flood restoration company, the biggest problem that I am dealing with at the moment, is burst pipes in the Attic the reason for this Is everybody is lagging the loft far too much. You need some heat from the house to go into the attic. Over Christmas I have been going to houses which are totally ruined, every single wall floor ceiling Is saturated with water, the cause of this, It's far too much loft insulation. when it freezes outside the Attic becomes far too cold and bursting pipes and water tanks and pipes are lagged but because there is no heat entering the attic the it is not sufficient, and it is not as simple as (ok I will put extra lagging on the pipes) please think about this. before putting layers of insulation in your attic.
I am going into attics with 3 and 4 layers of insulation, mostly for this reason our company had 480 clams in Scotland in 48 hours and this is just our company other companies are also receiving clams.
Just thought I should point this out

South cambridgeshire district council lends these cameras out to residents, maybe other councils have similar schemes

My local library lends out thermal cameras, fantastic place for them and all libraries should do it IMHO

I renten one, cuy came by and we walked around the house. I learned a thing or two about my house

Great video as usual! As it happens my son has a cheap self-contained £110 Ali Express self-contained thermal camera which he brought with him when he visited before Christmas. It saved me £500-£600 straight off the bat because I had just got quotes for a Power Flush but the Thermal Camera showed that all the radiators were heating evenly and no cold spots. Also showed where there had been a window in the lounge I never knew had been there and the buried lintel was a cold spot as was the loft hatch. I also could confirm that the 300mm of Rockwall loft insulation was doing its job and had been pushed into all the difficult to reach places but the loft hatch showed up as DEEP BLUE and in need of attention. We also went outside and inspected the performance of the windows and wall insulation and all was good apart for one hot spot 10 C hotter than any other point on the house. It coincided with where central heating pipes at the other side were buried in the floor typical on a 1970's build. Well worth any family investing in a thermal camera I would say and sharing the cost.

I bought one, think it's worth it. I did find one heat leak that I can fix, but mostly I found places where heat is being lost, but retrofit would be complicated and expensive. Even if you can't recoup the cost, I think it is worth buying. Then you can take it to your family and friends and look for energy savings.

If you have little to no insulation between the garage and the first floor, might be worth insulating the garage ceiling.

I'm no expert, but... I would guess your issue in the kitchen is more to do with airflow/drafts, probably where the pipe work comes in rather than lack of insulation. I've been looking to get one of these cameras, but not found a cost effective way yet, that and I want to solve all the issues I know about first!

Well done lad… can I borrow it?

Me and mate are looking at buying one of these to do the same thing.

In effect, if you can be bothered to put up with the hassle, you can "rent" by buying one on ebay or similar and then selling it later. But yes if there was a rental service id definitely rent one. And youve given me the impetus to insulate my loft hatch also.

I looked at renting a thermal camera, it's not as good as what you've shown (lesser resolution) but was £70 a day, plus a £30 deposit and £20 insured postage to return so never bothered. In the meantime I've done the poorman's version of this. Wait for a really windy day and go around each window/door/socket with an incense stick to check for airtightness. It won't help for level of insulation of course but its the best I could do For £3 vs £120!

Good sense - thanks!

You can easily remove the plinth beneath the kitchen cabinets without destroying it. And then put insulation behind it.

Sort of thing that an EPC surveyer could have, to include a bunch of camera shots to the customer paying for the EPC survey.

I would like to see the difference between double glazing and triple glazing on a thermal camera

I guess there are three different, at least there were with older FLIR models, Lightning for iPhone, then USB-C and USB-micro depending on you Android device.

Jewsons rent them for £80 per day or £111 for a weekend. Crazy prices for what you get, especially as you'd want to do a before and after.

I went with a Topdon cheaper for better resolution only downside for some is android only.

Bjorn Nyland uses it to check if the car sensors and cameras are heated or not

I have a Black and Decker thermal detector (a gun type device) which I used to confirm that a neighbour's new build had a section of uninsulated external wall. Very good video and I think that renting one of these devices is a great idea.

Perfect. Just at the right time - wanted to buy one but didn't know what to buy or if it would do what I wanted. Companies do provide the service where I live in Europe but charge 3x the purchase price, manpower and 'report' included.
You didn't use it on the outside, though...?

I think you should point heat camera on the outside of your house.

Start a hire business with it. £20 a week. Pays for itself in 10 hires. Once you turn a profit, buy another, maybe for the alternative OS next time.

Weird synchronicity. I just asked my local council for the loan of a FLIR thermal imaging camera. We installed an ASHP in the summer and have been monitoring its performance over recent months, particularly December. Our energy consumption is a little higher than expected, probably because we have some gaps in our cavity wall insulation and several old double glazed windows with dodgy seals.

I’ve had a flir for a while but it stopped charging. Replaced it with a TopDon one and it’s great. Much higher resolution than the flir ones - 256x192 compared to flir 80x60 - and a little cheaper.

I had a guy from a local insulation company come in with one a while back. It didn't cost a thing, until I paid him to fix some of the problems he found.

We just got a pro version at work and it is fantastic, borrowed it to look at my house. Like you, the loft hatch is an obvious place I need to start with insulating. I also need to draught proof several timber external doors. If you know someone who has one, then it is definitely worth borrowing one

Thank you. Several months ago I was going to buy a thermal camera, but got distracted and forgot.
Now I've seen this vid, I'll look again.
Was going to get a UNI-T model from aliexpress.
Good reminder...thanks👍

I have just bought a FLIR one too, took my first set of photos yesterday and need to go through in a bit more detail. Found a similar issue to you below the kitchen cupboards. Realised that the bottom third of some of our walls are colder where they go in to cellar, which seems obvious but I hadn't realised before (our house is split level). Confirmed a few other things I suspected were cold spots that will be harder to deal with but also confirmed that a couple of improvements I made in the past are working! I'm hoping it will eventually pay for itself with us, as our house is big, draughty and we'll be here a long time... we'll see.
I also have an extractor fan that I thought was completely dead... but the FLIR has shown me it is producing heat! So some investigation is warranted there.
A word of warning to others...FLIR seem to be having trouble with compatibility with certain phones, which their website does not indicate at all. I have a Google Pixel on Android 13 and the FLIR does not work with it, but fortunately there is an older version of the FLIR app that works with my old Sony phone on Android 9. I also tested the camera successfully with the latest app on my friend's Samsung with Android 12. FLIR have told me an app update will be released to make it work with Pixel phones, but I'm not holding my breath. Go in eyes-open because these things are not cheap.

Cold spots on upstairs ceilings will also attract damp and mould. As moisture will migrate to the upper floors and then find the cold surfaces to condense on. I've just fixed my insulation and had to repaint because of this.

Get your gear tart friend to buy it as a gadget, then invite them around to play...

Air tightness is as important. Easy and cheap to test.... Tyre inflator and barometer. Do it room by room and take your time.

EVM Flir hire…
I’ll hire it for a week.

I bought a Flir and it was useful when arguing with the company the council used to install loft insulation. I even had to get them back as when I checked with the Flir I still had cold spots. To be honest even now there’s a couple of spots. So was good for me. Also noticed loads of heat leaking out of my double glazing and found the lintels in our late 60’s house are super cold inside the house. I’m trying to think of a way to insulate them without doing the whole internal wall with a stud and insulation.

If you join the Carbon Coop (£35 a year) they have one you can borrow.