Winter’s strangle hold of frigid sub-zero temperatures has finally taken hold here in Minnesota. I’m sure many of you too have been blasted with arctic air and the storms that come with it. I think we’re in for a good old-fashioned winter and to be honest, it’s a welcome event. Last year’s winter weather was Read more
FLIR
Winter’s strangle hold of frigid sub-zero temperatures has finally taken hold here in Minnesota. I’m sure many of you too have been blasted with arctic air and the storms that come with it. I think we’re in for a good old-fashioned winter and to be honest, it’s a welcome event.
Last year’s winter weather was terrible for business here in my area and I am very much in need and looking forward to the late night emergency no-heat calls or the many frozen/burst pipe repairs a typical winter inevitably ushers in. I never wish these situations on any of my customers; however, it is how we make our money so it’s good for the bottom line.
This past week our temps began to drop leading into the weekend; with lows bottoming out near -30F air temp and windchill reaching as low as -55F the calls have been coming in fairly regularly now. No heat, frozen pipes, a couple broken water pipe and even a frozen stock tank are some of the issues I’ve personally dealt with so far.
Just this last Sunday you might have seen a Facebook or Instagram post from an early morning emergency call I received from a new customer without water at any of their faucets. With overnight lows reaching well below -25F I was curious whether they had a frozen pipe inside their home or if the well supply line to the house has actually froze underground. I quickly found the problem upon arrival with the help of my infrared thermal imager, a tool I cannot imagine being without.
As mentioned in my post I have a few thermal imagers, two by Flir, one from Milwaukee and another from SEEK Thermal. Each is a little different from the others but all have proven extremely useful when diagnosing problems with both plumbing and heating systems. I should also mention how valuable these tools are to verify the proper operation of radiant heating systems as well. On a more than one occasion I have used an imager to show my customers where embedded heating lines are installed and that they are in fact operating as designed; something nearly impossible to do with any other tool.
Back to the frozen plumbing call.
When I arrived to the house with no water I immediately turned on all the faucets, walked downstairs into the mechanical room and attached my thermal imager to my iPhone. Within a minute I was able to identify the likely problem, a fresh air supply duct spilling -13F cold air directly onto the inlet copper tubing to the whole house water softener. As you can see in the photo the area around the softener is only 28F, something I would have eventually figured out but there was a lot of piping near the rim joists and strapped in front of an outside wall so I have no doubt it would’ve taken more than one minute.
Thankfully none of the copper had burst or even expanded so once I had thawed the ice plug in the softener piping it let loose and water was flowing to each faucet. Problem solved. Quickly thanks to a tool I will never be without and continue to find new uses for everyday.
Image captured with Flir ONE for iPhone
TOOL: FLIR CM174 Imaging 600A AC/DC Clamp Meter With IGM (Infrared Guided Measurement) Mechanical Hub asked me to test out the FLIR CM174 Clamp Meter with the integrated IR Camera. I was excited yet skeptical to try out a new meter. In my line of electrical work I have my ‘go to’ meters and current Read more
TOOL: FLIR CM174 Imaging 600A AC/DC Clamp Meter With IGM (Infrared Guided Measurement)
Mechanical Hub asked me to test out the FLIR CM174 Clamp Meter with the integrated IR Camera. I was excited yet skeptical to try out a new meter. In my line of electrical work I have my ‘go to’ meters and current clamps that I know every in and out of. These have shared the same long days, weekends, overnights, and holiday emergency calls, so why look at product other than what I’ve carried for years? Well after I familiarized myself with the FLIR CM174, I was impressed by the added functionality that this meter provided.
Let’s be honest, in the electrical world there is voltage and current and you don’t need much of a complex device to tell you what these readings are; however, I didn’t realize what all I was missing without FLIR’s IGM technology (Infrared Guided Measurement). The IR function of this compact meter gave me an advantage and more importantly a safety aspect to my job that was not their previously. Not only can I easily troubleshoot hot spots and imminent failures with this meter, but when going through my procedures to test for ‘zero’ voltage or absence of voltage, I am also able to take a look at the thermal properties of the equipment. The old mentality is that I need to get to work and get this job done as quick as possible, so I only care about voltage – am I going to get shocked or not. Getting hit by a stiff 480V in the morning is not how I like to start my day, but the reality is I’m stuck in a time crunch and the customer is standing behind me tapping his feet because his plant is shut down and costing him big dollars every second it is down. So I hurry up and grab my ‘new’ meter, and as expected, the voltage is zero, but what about the temperature? Do I really have time to check this, and why would I care to even look at this, I have never done this in the past. So I have the meter in my hand and it is only 1 quick click away from telling me the temperature. To my surprise there is a section of the equipment that was extremely hot due to a loose connection. My heart takes off and I get a little clammy thinking about how bad I could have been burnt when I would have grabbed onto the equipment to get this repair completed while trying to get the customer back online. 
The silent killer, known as electricity, is not the only silent danger that I should be worried about. I thank the FLIR CM174 for identifying other safety aspects of my job and preventing me from being injured. The safety aspect alone is worth having the meter, but the ability to troubleshoot using the IR functionality of this meter is a huge step above what the industry is used to. At the end of day, the customer has the lights back on and was thoroughly impressed by the equipment not only to solve their problems, but to identify and resolve other pending issues that were not identified before. This customer is now loyal to us and continues to use us for their service needs.
Tool feature info courtesy of flir.com
