Thermal Camera
Photos that show you need to fix what you can't see.
As I threatened in the temperatures blog, I got the Android thermal camera out and walked around a little.... Sorta wish I hadn't. Better not to know in some cases.
Freddy was commenting (polite way of saying complaining) that the new garden shed was a real hot box.
We happened to be at Home Depot at the right time, and there were 5 sheets of foil-backed foam insulation on the 70% off rack. Grabbed them right quick and cut them to size for the shed roof.
This is the result. Another of the photos I took showed a 20°C difference between the raw tin and the insulated part.
You can really feel the difference, so that was a great $8 tweak to the comfort level of that shed.
In the garage, it's all a bit raw. We really would like to get some insulation in there before winter, but time and money are running out, so we're not sure what we might be able to put in place between now and then. Everywhere I point the camera, it's not good. Roof, garage door, rear barn door, plexiglass window, it's all a bit hot and leaky.
Do you recall when Cole cut a hole in the roof of the shop so I could run the first few antenna coax cables in?
Yeah... It gave access for the coax and the hot/cold.
I won't worry about it much until I am almost done running coax cables, so I probably won't get to stuffing insulation back in there until about mid 2028.
The computer wall is kinda interesting.
I'm sorta looking forward to seeing what it looks like in winter.
Just a fun overview angle here.
The garage door is pretty well sealed, you can't even see where it starts/stops. It's in the far right of the frame. You can actually see the warm glow of the garage door opener (remote control receiver?) between the roof and the door on that right-hand side of that image.
Pretty dull shot here, just the breaker and wire that goes out to the shed where the Bolt was on charge. Nothing to worry about. 4C rise is nothing.
This is the top of the hot water cylinder. I've started to run foam insulation along the hot pipes, and you can clearly see the two 90 angles where I have not zip-tied the foam shut yet. I left them off so I could take this photo. Well worth running the foam it would seem, and I will be sure to either use foil tape, or lots of zip ties to seal it all up. The reason for the foam insulation is that we plan to put in a hot water circulating pump, and so we want to reduce the heat loss while it is running as much as possible.
The to-do list for this place just never stops. It's a case of the more you look, the more there is to do. Even when you look in thermal vision.
