Your building’s roof is under constant pressure to keep water, snow, and debris out, so it’s a common failure point in structures. Knowing when your roof is leaking can help prevent significant water damage which will adversely affect your building in so many ways, and accurately detecting these leaks can be challenging. Below, we’re going to discuss what infrared (IR) roof moisture surveys are, how they work, and how they protect your building.
What is an Infrared Roof Moisture Survey?
An IR roof moisture survey is a non-invasive scan of a roof’s surface in order to detect moisture beneath the waterproofing membrane. Knowing the areas where wet insulation exists, gives you the opportunity to understand whether you can make repairs or need to replace the roof. In some instances, it can help you to locate the breach that is causing the leak, further enabling you to have a full understanding of when decisions need to be made.
How Does It Work?
IR scanning uses thermal imaging to detect moisture in the construction material beneath your roof. Your roof warms up as it sits in the sun all day, and the captured heat naturally dissipates in the evening when the sun goes down.
Construction material like insulation absorbs moisture more readily.. As the solar load leaves the roof, the waterproofing membrane will cool and become ambient faster than the wet insulation beneath it. These warmer areas of moisture are then captured in thermal images with an infrared camera.
How It Protects Your Investment
IR roof moisture surveys protect your building in a few ways. First, they help pinpoint moisture beneath the membrane so that you can understand and fix the problem before it causes severe water damage to your interior. Second, knowing where the moisture is and enabling accurate repairs helps to retain its insulative properties, lowering your energy costs, and putting less strain on your HVAC equipment.
Lastly, it provides a safe, non-intrusive, and highly accurate way to detect moisture and damaged or wet insulation. Other leak detection methods like flood testing are often inaccurate in finding the issues and can lead to additional water damage to the interior of your building.
Risks of Not Getting One
Neglecting to have your roof scanned for leaking isn’t advisable because you’re potentially leaving yourself exposed to severe water damage or roof failure. A persistent leak will cause damage to the interior of your building and can limit your building’s insulative capabilities.
The benefits of IR roof moisture surveys far outweigh the cost and the potential headache of carrying out costly repairs. When you’re ready to have an accurate and non-invasive scan done on your building’s roof, contact one of our highly trained IR survey experts for more information.