Loading…
6
Dropped $1,900 on a thermal camera and it found a hidden attic fire risk in 20 minutes
I was doing a panel swap in an old house near Clifton last week and kept smelling something hot but could not pin it down with my hand or a cheap IR thermometer. So I grabbed a FLIR E8 that I finally pulled the trigger on after going back and forth on it for like 8 months, it ran me about $1,900. Within 20 minutes I found a junction box buried under insulation reading 190 degrees, wires were backstabbed and baking for who knows how long. Customer had no idea, I fixed it same day and probably saved their house. Half my jobs I barely touch the thing but when it matters it really matters, anyone else run thermal on service calls or just bring it out for panel work?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
drew_jones3120d ago
Reminds me of a call I ran a couple winters back in an old duplex where the tenant swore their bedroom was cold no matter what. I poked around with my Klein meter and everything checked out fine, heat was running, vents were open. Then I walked the outside wall with the camera and found a whole section of wall that was ice cold compared to the rest, turns out the insulation had settled down to about a foot deep over the years. Blew in new stuff and the guy said his furnace barely ran after that. Point being, the camera keeps finding stuff that has nothing to do with what I came there for. The buried junction box you caught is the scary kind though, 190 on a backstab is a fire waiting to happen and nobody would ever know until it was too late.
2