Thermal cameras play their part in flood recovery

Deadly floods on Australia’s eastern seaboard have left a trail of destruction with thousands of properties in need of damage assessment and repair in coming months.

At the forefront of the road back to recovery will be an army of building inspectors and professional thermographers armed with no more than an infrared camera.

These high-tech cameras can detect, spot and measure temperature differences over entire surfaces.

Residual moisture, mould or dampness problems can be easily identified by thermal imaging cameras. For many flood victims, IR images will be required as buildings and property are able to be assessed by thermal image without the need for further damage or demolition.

The FLIR E-Series handheld thermal imagers have further refined the skill in ‘moisture-spotting’ through the use of Meterlink, which frees the thermographer from the manual process of collecting field data.

Using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies, the technology enables the thermographer to wirelessly transmit diagnostic data from clamp and moisture meters directly to the camera and associate these readings with the corresponding targets stored in an infrared image for accurate, coordinated documentation.

Voice comments can be added via Bluetooth headset and text notes from the touch-screen keypad.

For building-related professionals concerned with tracking moisture and water entry, Meterlink works with the Extech InspectorPro MO297 multifunction moisture meter and psychrometer. Using Wi-Fi, images and data can be sent to an iPhone or iPad to share reports and critical information quickly.

Roger Christiansz, General Manager FLIR Systems Australia, said: “Meterlink enables FLIR customers to integrate valuable readings from advanced, multifunction Extech meters into one format, their infrared image.”