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Winter is coming up, and for those of us in the Midwest, that means that winterizing needs to be done. I'm moving into a house built in 1956 that may have some cold spots around doors, windows, and vents; my girlfriend's duplex could probably use a good evaluation as well. I have heard that you can now either rent thermal cameras from a rental supply company or Home Depot, or buy one for Android and iOS devices.

I've heard of people using the rental cameras to identify cold spots throughout a home. Looking at Home Depot's prices, it's a $150 deposit and either $53 for the four-hour minimum, or $75 for the full day. This gets you the FLIR i7, which is a professional-grade unit retailing for about $2,000 online. Obviously, it'd be better to rent than buy in that situation (at least, if you ever want to make your money back in energy savings in the home), but this is not exactly a practical option in some scenarios. In the state where I live (Missouri), they're only available in Kansas City or St. Louis, and my girlfriend lives in Columbia, about an hour and a half to two hours away from either of these cities. I have so far been unable to find a rental supply company in town that offers this sort of equipment (though let me know if you know of one), so that makes the four-hour rental impractical and reduces the value of the one day rental quite a bit.

I've been looking around and noticed that consumer-grade thermal imaging cameras are finally available as an accessory to iOS and Android devices, with prices ranging between $149 and $249. This is more expensive than the $75 for sure (provided you get the deposit back), but would allow for more thorough use in investigating cold spots in my new home and my girlfriend's duplex. My question is, are these cameras (like the FLIR One and Seek Compact) up to the task? Obviously, they had to reduce some capability of the sensors to get the price to something consumers could afford.

Has anyone tried these thermal imaging cameras for hunting cold spots? How did it go?

nerdenator
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  • There was an article in Fine Homebuilding magazine 2-3 issues ago. They reviewed the FLIR (forward looking infra red) app and the camera attachment. It received good praise from the author. What I also remember is that it is limited pixels(?) so that it wasn't the highest quality picture. I'll get the particulars and info about the article and post later. – ojait Nov 22 '15 at 03:01
  • Why not get an infrared thermometer, like [this one](http://www.lowes.com/pd_73790-56005-IRT207___?productId=3136869) that you can find at your local hardware store for $20-$30? I've never used a thermal camera, but I suppose it would make that task quicker. Taking multiple temperature measurements around the doors and windows and comparing to other parts of the room and home isn't hard but just a bit more time. I've never attempted to proactively find the cold spots in my home (besides standing by the door and noticing a draft), so am I missing something that would require special equipment? – Adam Porad Nov 22 '15 at 05:03
  • I haven't used the new phone based units but have used professional 10-15k models if pixel resilouton was the only negative that would be way better than an IR gun as they average the spot area where the camera will show specific spots air, water ECT may be moving (the really expensive ones have helped us find roof leak starting points) – Ed Beal Nov 22 '15 at 19:19

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