Tag: Energy Audit Tools

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What You Need to Know About Thermal Imaging Cameras

I purchased my first thermal imaging camera back in 2009, it was an Extech i3 (made by Flir).  The $1200 camera had a resolution of 60×60, total pixels of 3,600 and shot photos only in thermal (no digital photo overlay).  If you don’t understand any of those terms, that’s okay, you will have a basic understanding of how thermal imaging works by the end of this article.  Oh, and by the way, you can now purchase more than twice the camera I had in 2009 with half the cost.

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How to Track Appliance Electricity Use

This post first appeared on the Green Building Advisor Website.

Part of my job working as an energy auditor is educating homeowners on electricity usage, reviewing and analyzing historical electricity usage is part of the process.  Checking service conductors and individual branch circuits in an electrical service panel is also sometimes needed.  This information lets me know if an appliance, motor, or other device is operating as expected.  How about electricity usage of an appliance or other equipment over time?  My visit to a home is usually under four hours, hardly enough time to figure out how often a device operates.  For this, we need tools that can record data.

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