Energy waste including the cold loss in summer and heat loss in winter of a building due to a thermal bridge, air infiltration, or faulty insulation is usually difficult to detect. If left unchecked, it may result in conditioned air escape or frost damage.
Cold loss due to geometric thermal bridge
A thermal camera can quickly pinpoint the insulation issue that is invisible to the naked eye such as inside the wall or below the roof by detecting the temperature difference to allow deploying mitigation measures in time.
Insulation problems usually appear in a building's exterior walls, roofs, or windows, sometimes far from the inspector. The FOTRIC 340 offers four interchangeable lenses from a wide-angle 44°×34° lens to an ultra-telephoto 7°×5° lens to obtain temperature details of larger areas and from a distance. In addition, FOTRIC cameras provide a temperature range between -20°C and 1550°C for measurement which can capture the heat loss taking place outdoors below 0°C. Generally, indoor conditioned cold air loss induces only subtle temperature differences which require a sensitive imager such as the FOTRIC 340 with its brilliant sensitivity of 30mK.
Heat loss or cold loss usually occurs in an area with a higher thermal conductivity than its surroundings, creating a path of least resistance for heat transfer due to material-related or geometric thermal bridge, or air infiltration, which leads to an overall reduction in thermal resistance of the building. Thermal cameras can reveal both thermal bridges and air infiltration in color through temperature differences.