CBS News Reports on Infrared Inspection with Peter Hopkins
CBS Meets with Peter Hopkins, Co-Owner of United Infrared, Inc. (National Operations) and Principal of SoCal Infrared (Local Servicing Company).
Infrared Camera Puts Pendleton Fire in New Perspective
For years, fire departments have used thermal imaging cameras mounted on their helicopters to see through smoke, to find people and to localize the base of a fire. Monday night, a Fallbrook man used his unit to record flames from the Sleeping Indian area blaze.
CBS Reports of Equine Thermography
Charlie (the horse) was evacuated from a fire location in San Diego and Peter Hopkins was retained in an effort to help identify injuries Charlie may have sustained during transport.
NBC News reports on Going Green with Thermal Imaging with Peter Hopkins
The following news story aired on NBC News – November 7, 2007.
All month long, News 3 is helping you Go Green by bringing you stories that help you recycle, reuse and reduce. News 3’s Robert Santos shows us how to cut back on heating and cooling costs using infrared technology.
The U.S. Department of Energy says a huge portion of our energy bill is wasted due to a lack of weather stripping around doors and windows. Also to blame: insufficient insulation. But how can you see what’s behind a wall or a ceiling. Who do you call? Try a thermographer.
It’s about 73 degrees on this cold spot. Peter Hopkins isn’t picking up the presence of ghosts. Instead, he’s detecting areas in Tony’s new Summerlin home that have loose or missing insulation.
“Insulation should be consistently placed throughout your house to be effective,” Peter says. If we have gaps, that’s where air infiltration is taking place.” Those gaps show up as dark spots on Peter’s $40,000 thermal imaging camera.
Peter finds trouble spots in just about every room. “This is a situation where we have insulation that they didn’t carry all the way up to the bottom of that window sill. So you see a dark area right there. This is a location in the wall so we have no attic here. This is an entire section here that we have missing.”
For thermal imaging to work, there must be at least an 18 degree difference between the temperature inside and outside a home. The temperature outside on this day is in the mid 50s. Inside, Tony turns up the heat to about 80 degrees.
Dark spots in Peter’s camera indicate cold outside air is coming through indicating bad insulation. Peter, a certified thermographer, says probably the number one defect in any home is found in the attic, where most homeowners never even see. “It’s always been required in the energy code basically that we carry insulation fully in an attic. They always forget to insulate the attic access cover.
Peter confirms what his camera is showing him by going up into the attic where, sure enough, he finds the insulation isn’t set properly.
In the end, Peter saves all the thermal images and converts them into a written report for Tony. “It’s fascinating because you would never know what was behind your walls unless you tear down the walls or go up in the attic like Peter did,” Tony said.
The DOE recommends a thermal imaging inspection be done on newly constructed homes. Most builders have a warranty for a new home, some for one year, others longer. Thermal investigations conducted by a certified thermographer are valid in a court of law.
Infrared Testing Reveals Hidden Defects
