Thermal Survey helped House Owner with Claim
Click on images to enlarge.
 
Homeowners Mr & Mrs Aurora contacted iRed back in 2008 as they were unhappy with their house and its ability to retain heat. Of particular concern was their son's bedroom shown below and the lounge shown further down.
A full thermographic survey of the property was carried out in February 2009. A number of Thermal anomolies were found during the survey. Above is an image of the front of the house, showing an anomaly area of wall which is much warmer than the rest of the elevation.
On the right you can see an image of their son's bedroom which has an anomaly in the left hand corner which flares out into the room. It was noted during the survey that this room was cooler than the other rooms upstairs by approximately 3 degrees.
The blue areas on the ceiling and wall all pointed towards a lack of insulation in
the cavities and loft areas. The lounge (shown left) had a noticeable cold area in the right hand corner and a cold flare coming from the Patio Doorway, like the bedroom these sorts of temperature differentials are normally attributed to lack of, or missing insulation. The metrological conditions for undertaking the survey were very good and the
building had been maintained at a temperature to provide an acceptable difference between internal and external ambient's.
Following the survey Mr & Mrs Aurora tackled the builders and NHBC armed with the thermographic report. Month after month letters, emails and phone calls were exchanged about the problems and how potentially they could be resolved. Finally at the end of 2009 Mr & Mrs Aurora were given the news that their house would have a more intrusive investigation carried out to find out if the construction of their house was in accordance with building regulations. A few holes were to be drilled in the rooms which were of concern to investigate if the correct amount of insulation was present.
A 'few' holes turned into 98 3" diameter boreholes. It subsequently turned out that the Aurora's house was not just lacking insulation, in fact it didn't have any below the 1m level. A plan of action was issued by the builders. The house needed the walls to be stripped of plasterboard, insulation fitted and the interior of the house rebuilt. The family spent 19 days in a local hotel whilst the remedial work was undertaken.
The photo right shows the full extent of the remedial work that was carried out. The walls had to be stripped back to the block work.
A year had passed since the first survey and the Aurora's decided to invite iRed back to find if the remedial work had made a difference to the thermal properties of their house. The following images were taken on a evening where
the environmental conditions were almost identical to the original survey.

Both of these images (Lounge Left, Bedroom Above) show a marked
increase in the surface temperatures of the walls and ceilings, indicating that the insulation is working. The ambient room temperatures were almost identical but due to the insulation now in place the Aurora's heating bill should be significantly less.
Externally the property still showed a slightly warmer area of wall as per the previous survey but the severity of the heat loss had decreased.
Mr Aurora commented "I was really pleased with the service from iRed, they were professional throughout our ordeal and whilst our property is still not
perfect we were pleased to learn from iRed that we have at least taken a few steps in the right direction."