Thermal Roof Scans

Help! My Roof Is Leaking!

Commercial building owners are aware that roof leaks can cause hundreds of thousands of dollars damage to buildings and equipment. It can be hard to pinpoint the roof leak location, leading to costly yet ineffective roof repairs because the leak inside the building rarely directly relates to the exact spot on the roof. Water flows down the slope of the roof to a vulnerable spot and into the building at that point.

Waterproofing problems manifest in two ways: leakage and entrained moisture contamination. Most leaks occur where the waterproofing termination is sealed or where there is a penetration of the roof. Since most types of roofing systems absorb some amount of water, it is harder to find the exact spot of water contamination in the insulation because it may not leak into the building until the insulation has absorbed all the water it can hold.

Roof Scans (also called On-Roof Infrared Moisture Surveys) enable you to develop a more sophisticated roof asset management program, make more informed decisions regarding roofing budgets, and to plan effective repairs. Infrared roof moisture surveys can save you thousands of dollars on roof repair and replacement costs. Prevent mold risks, roof damage and leaks and slash energy costs

The thermal roof scan picture below demonstrates how areas of moisture create heat that is invisible to the naked eye, allowing you to "see" exactly where your roof is vulnerable to leaks. By using infrared thermography, we find the trapped moisture and mark the wet areas so that repairs can be made surgically. This can save you money because you may not have to replace the roof as soon. By marking paint directly on the roof, repair areas can be seen by anyone standing on the roofs after the survey is performed.

So How Do Thermal Roof Scans Work?

During the day, the sun radiates energy onto the roof and into the roof substrate, and then at night, the roof radiates the heat back into outer space. This is called radiational cooling. Areas of the roof that are of a higher mass (wet) retain this heat longer than that of the lower mass (dry) areas. Infrared imagers can detect this heat and "see" the warmer, higher mass areas, during the "window" of uneven heat dissipation. Heat loss and other IR services can be performed at the same time.

By using the information generated by a RoofScanIR™ report, your roofing professional can recommend cost-effective removal and replacement of wet components and draw documents to prepare an adequate roofing substrate to receive a recover installation to extend the satisfactory roofing system’s service life.

IR Infrared Services is a proud member of the United Infrared Network, and is a certified RoofScanIR™ provider. Find out more at http://www.irinfraredservices.com/ or by calling Brian Connolly at IR Infrared Services, LLC at (803) 328-2889.

Level III Certified IR Thermographers serving North and South Carolina.