Roof Thermography

Infrared imagery is often a grayscale picture whose scales (or shades of gray) represent the differences in temperature and emissivity of objects in the image. As a general rule, objects in the image that are lighter in color are warmer and darker objects are cooler. No object in the images is detected via visible light wavelengths (400-700 nanometers) rather, only from infrared wavelengths in the 3000–5000 nanometers or in the 3–5 micrometers (microns) range.

Lights and other relatively hot objects are very evident, but as a result of their heat, and not light emissions.
 

When an image is taken by our infrared camera, it is often recorded on videotape and/or digitally saved to a hard drive and later converted to a digital image file with the help of a computer. The image may then be modified in a number of ways to enhance its value to the end user. The highest resolution infrared images are usually found on the digital media, while the printed pictures may be used as a convenient reference when making the building drawings or accompanying a roof report.

Areas of roof moisture contamination often manifest themselves as warmer (lighter colored) areas that may be nebulous in shape and sometimes mottled in appearance, although they are commonly found in linear or puddle-like shapes. The linear shapes many times follow low areas, drainage routes, roof edges, and seams. Puddle-like round or oblong shapes often form around roof penetrations such as mechanical equipment, standpipes, vents, and drains. 

The wet areas are lighter in color because the latent heat (from daylight sunshine) in the trapped water mass is greater than in the dry, functioning insulation or roof substrate. After sunset when the roof structure cools down, wet areas of roof insulation and other materials continue to radiate heat, allowing our sensitive infrared cameras to detect the sources of heat and record them for later analysis.

Performing infrared roof moisture surveys while standing on the roof is not the best method because imagery from a walk-on survey is not as useful as aerial imagery. The same laws of physics apply to both aerial IR and on-roof IR. A dry roof, low winds, and no rain are needed on the night of the survey. However, the "window" when the roof is radiating heat differently from wet and dry areas is longer with aerial infrared because slight nuances of temperatures over large areas are recognizable. 

A high angle of view and high resolution are needed to produce usable imagery. We use large-format infrared cameras, which have at least 512 x 512 staring array detectors (262,144 pixels). From an altitude of 1,200–1,500 feet above the roof with over a quarter of a million pixels, the ground resolution element is about six inches square.

Visual photographs are taken earlier in the day or the next day. Both visual and infrared images are used to do the analysis by overlaying the AutoCAD drawing of the roof ‘over’ the digitized photographs and thermographs. The drawings are created indicating areas of suspected moisture contamination. The result is a report where visual, infrared, and AutoCAD components (printed and video) are well matched and lined up.