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Good candidate house for IR?


Marc

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Yesterday's house was a one story, wood framed structure in the middle of a major renovation. The entire roof frame is being replaced. 12 days ago, the framing contractor made the mistake of leaving the just sheathed roof without any underlayment or covering while a big rainstorm passed through. Client is the GC who wants to help his framing subcontractor with the insurance claim by having me identify all damages to the interior finishes, insulation systems, electric, HVAC, et cetera and to specify repairs to correct everything. My biggest problem is that this request came 12 days after the rainstorm event, all ceiling insulation has been removed because so much of it was wet and so most of the evidence of where the water hit is now gone. Only evidence left is about 10 or 15 different locations where the interior finish has been removed because water was seen 'pouring' (his words) through. I ended up advising him to get a state licensed mold remediation contractor to conduct a survey of the damage and write up a protocol to remediate/mitigate any mold growths that may have got started.

I wake up this am with the question on my mind as to whether an IR camera would have been the tool of choice for this job. Power was shut off to the house after the rainfall because the contractor feared an electrical fire, but what if power could have been restored to the HVAC system and the AC run for 5 or 10 hrs on yesterday's 80 degree day to drop the interior RH 10 or 20 percentage points? Would this have been a good application for an IR camera?

Marc

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IR would have been useful for identifying wet areas inside closed walls, ceilings, etc. It sounds like they went ahead and stripped out the finishes in any area thought to be wet, but if there are still areas that are insulated and covered with sheetrock, you could scan those assuming you can get a decent delta T. I would take my camera to check out something like this, I might use it and it might help, but unless there are a lot of closed cavities I wouldn't go to the trouble of bringing in someone else.

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