Hythe thermal imaging

Advice was sought initially from people at Elham who had undertaken this sort of project in their village. We then approached Kent County Council about borrowing their thermal camera. We collected this and now it for a couple of months. One of our members, who had attended a one-day course and is a qualified surveyor, Helen Severs, has headed the project. Next, we contacted the two local papers to get publicity for the scheme and ask for people to come forward if they wanted their houses to be part of the study. A steady number of requests came in from this route, as well as by word of mouth.

A first visit was carried out on the evening of Friday 4th March 2011. The householder had fitted insulation in the roof and walls but was still experiencing a draft. The study identified some possible areas where the insulation had not reached and also a likely source of the draft being an uninsulated loft roof. One happy 'customer' planning remedial action. Helen was accompanied by a couple of other transition town participants and the aim has been to broaden knowledge in using the camera through this route.

A list of other households was drawn up and visits arranged. These took place over the next few weeks and all threw up interesting points. One of the houses was planning to have wall cavity insulation fitted over the summer so we planned to do a 'before' and 'after' visit. Another revealed an odd warm spot on an outside wall and it turned out to be a pair of pigeons snuggled up under the roof! Other findings have included heat loss through non-operational chimneys, heat loss from radiators (if they can be detected by the camera from the outside then there is serious heat loss, perhaps partially remedied by shiny backing behind the radiator) and poorly fitted windows.

Each householder receives copies of the images and a summary of the conclusions and, where relevant, suggested steps to take.

We borrowed the camera again for a second phase of this project in January and February 2012.