AskCodeMan

Jerry,
From a home inspection / construction litigation expert's point of view; What are your feelings about the use of infrared in the home inspection industry? Doesnt it cross the threshold of what is supposed to be a non technical, non invasive evaluation of a structure?
I mean, once you bring that thing out and use it, are you not now a specialist? What are the liabilty ramifications, in your opinion?

Marc,

Do you become a specialist when you bring out your voltmeter, your moisture meter, your plug-in circuit tester, even your screw driver and remove a panel cover?

The infrared camera is nothing more than "just another diagnostic tool" to help you find what you could not find visually", besides ... "the visual home inspection" is a myth.

Home inspection were "visual" when they first started 35-40 or more years ago, but when the first inspector picked up a tissue paper to see if it stuck to the wall and used that as the first 'moisture detector' that inspection was no longer "visual" (and, yes, I know an "old timer" home inspector who did that when testing for moisture, there was nothing else to use, so, if he suspected moisture, and the wall felt like it might be moist, he would hold a piece of tissue paper against the wall, if the tissue stuck the wall was wet, if the tissue fell but had a wet spot the wall was wet, if the tissue fell but was dry he told his client that he had suspicions about that area but no proof it was wet - that was about all they could do "back then").

Does an infrared camera require special training? Yes, it does, as do all of the more advanced equipment home inspectors use, however, the infrared camera requires much more advanced training than other equipment used by home inspectors.

Does that make using an infrared camera "technical", "invasive", or above and beyond "visual"?
- "technical"? Not any more than using any other moisture meter or moisture detection device or any plug-in circuit analyzer.
- "invasive"? Infrared is actually less invasive than using a pin type moisture meter or a plug-in circuit analyzer, an infrared camera is simply "reading the surface temperature" of whatever it is looking at, it is up to the operator to determine what the temperatures shown on the display mean or represent.