Uses for a Thermal Image Camera

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No, I don’t have a pizza oven, but I do have a toaster oven, some delicious pizza from Venezia’s New York Style Pizzeria, and refreshing San Tan Orange Blossom beer!

It’s Friday night. What is more fun than pointing a thermal image camera at a pizza oven on your backyard porch? You focus the camera and find out your pizza should go on the fire and your cold beer on the table next to it is a perfect 48 degrees Fahrenheit!

At the end of a crazy week, not much!

Sure, a highly recommended and popular laser temperature gun* could be your answer, but if you are into DIY a thermal imagery camera** might already be a necessary tool in your tool chest–even if you didn’t know it (like me before seven months ago). A thermal imagery camera certainly has a lot of potential conventional and unconventional Superman vision-like uses!

Think about a picture that clearly shows***:

• Cold (or hot) air pouring in through cracks in windows and beneath doors
• Missing insulation in your walls and the ceiling
• Overheating outlets
• Leaking ducts in the attic
• Live rodents in walls or attic spaces
• Bee hives in your walls
• The location of a hot water line break in your slab foundation

You want all that fixed yesterday!

There are other fun and useful alternate thermal image camera uses:

• How warm is the water in your pool
• Checking the temperature of your grill/ beer/ batch of candy in a double boiler
• Debugging circuit board problems with your computer

If you are into DIY…

A thermal image camera assists you in finding the problematic areas in the first list without paying for a professional opinion. You can always bring one in later, but a thermal image may give you a little insight to the problem before calling in backup.

Armed with this tool you can also be the new favorite brother/ sister/ child/ cousin/ friend by helping your family and friends pinpoint their problems.

Think more pizza and beer…

If you already have a thermal camera, you probably already plan on putting it in your purse or shirt pocket during your next house hunt. If you don’t have one, buy, borrow, or rent one before you go! Checking all the above during a home search–knowing ahead of time what needs fixing–helps you plan and budget for what needs get fixed right away.

Like adding insulation to the back of the “attic access” aka a piece of drywall so the master closet stays cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter:

If you have a remediation and/or construction business…

Pointing a camera at a wall and showing a customer problematic areas sells jobs. A picture is worth 1000 words and cold (or hot) hard evidence of problems is a bestseller.

Can you hear yourself telling a customer, “Want to know why it is cold in this room while all the other rooms stay warm? Look right here at this picture!”

Leave the sales pitch to the camera!

The customer is convinced and relieved they did not get a fast one pulled on them. You are thrilled you did not have to convince them as to why they need the work done.

A thermal image camera can also be your marketing “team”. It is a great tool for capturing before and after comparisons of your work. Look at a handful of advertisements–you know the ones that come in a big envelope you get in the mail every week. You normally just throw them away after looking for local donut ads (or is that just me?). How many have images of before and after work? More than just a few!

Pictures of before and after work are great for finishing work like paint, tile, kitchen and bathroom remodels. However, if you are fixing problems behind walls you can’t just take a normal picture of your work. Drywall and paint look pretty much the same. That is, as long as what you took out looked decent.

Don’t despair! A thermal image camera can capture the beautiful insulation/ electrical fix/ whatever thermal work you did behind the wall!

This is a great “before” photo of a wall crying out for even a single bat of insulation. Or maybe the old bat fell down and needs to get set back in place.

Either way I just need to get in the attic and put a bat of insulation in this area. Then this post would have a great “after” photo.

Start using your thermal image camera on-site, along with showing your previous before and after comparisons, making your points and concerns obvious when going over initial discussions with customers. Not only are you being clairvoyant, but you also are building trust faster. The end result is a happier and more knowledgeable customer who will share your name with their friends!

Why we LOVE our thermal image cameras!

It is certainly not a single use tool: it is useful for multiple detective type searches. It is also cost saving and income producing by paying you back for purchasing it!

Can you think of more thermal image camera uses? The comment section below is all yours!

*The Etekcity Temperature gun has a nice feature: it very clearly shows if the temperature is Celsius or Fahrenheit. The first night we used my friend’s pizza oven we were unaware the gun was set to Celsius by default. My friend’s gun did not have the °C marked so prominently. So it seemed her oven did not warm up to cooking temperature. We were thoroughly disappointed the oven was broken as our homemade pizzas sat ready to go on the countertop inside. That is, until we started “shooting” other objects with her fun new temperature “gun”, including ourselves. It was at this point we discovered our own temperatures did not make sense. At all. Unless we were reading Celsius… All of the sudden we discovered our error and realized how ridiculously hot it actually was! The FLIR C2 thermal camera also clearly states which temperature gauge is shown. Safety first!

**We have a FLIR C2 and FLIR E6 in our business tool chest. The FLIR C2 is a small, lightweight entry level thermal imaging camera which we highly recommend. Honestly, we only have the FLIR E6 thermal imagery camera because it was part of a full on remediation set we bought on Craigslist. The more economical FLIR C2 is the better route to go unless you have reason to have the accuracy and extra features available in the FLIR E6. You can check out our FLIR C2 review in this blog post.

Speaking of extra features–recall the pizza oven at the beginning of the post. The FLIR C2 temperature range goes from –10°C to +150°C (14 to 302°F) as opposed to the FLIR E6, which ranges from –20°C to +250°C (–4°F to +482°F).

The Black Stone Pizza Oven manual calls out:

Since the operating temperature of the oven is above the FLIR C2 range, it is not the correct thermal image camera for the job. However, the FLIR E6 could easily handle it.

Admittedly, the scenario was meant to capture your imagination and keep you reading the post. It totally DOES NOT justify the cost difference between the C2 and/or the E6 when you can just buy the Etekcity Temperature gun for uber cheap. However, if you already own a thermal imagery camera, like we do, you might as well bring your sledgehammer to the table if you already have one and have a blast using it as often as possible!

***FYI, thermal infrared cameras do not work through glass. Glass does not reflect infrared.