Selling Roofs with Infrared Technology

While Infrared is fun it can be a great sales and customer education tool. I have used it many times just to sell roofs and of course I used it for my insurance adjusting and infrared inspection business. My recommendation; if you are considering using infrared to help sell roofs, don't waste your money on low-end cameras ($3k-$5K) like home inspectors. Invest in a high-end IR camera with a wide-angle lens along with lots of education.

Many contractors source this service out. Find a local thermographer that you can trust and team up with. I'm a level II working on my Level III and contacted frequently to aid roofers in selling projects: Infrared, scoping and providing detailed roof reports. Something that might help separate you from your competition.

The REAL extent of moisture damage- most property owners have no clue how moisture travels and when it finally does appear, as a small stain in most cases is much more than the visible I can see.

The shootout is over, I'm moving on.

The infrared industry for a long time wrongly assumed that you can only detect trapped moisture from above. This is where it helps to have a roofing background whereas those with only an infrared background miss a lot.

The same is also true of the theory that you can only find trapped moisture in the evening when the sun goes down "on" the roof. The same theories apply to cooling as they do to heating. I recently did a roof moisture survey on a roof in the morning: Through the night the wet insulation at some point equalizes with that of the dry. But then when the sun comes up, the wet insulation still solar-loads at a different rate than the dry, meaning you can "see" it in the sunlight after a few hours of sunlight/heating.

I'm trying to dodge the bullets...lol

This was a great case; The thermal pattern was trapped water above the metal deck and below the insulation board. The property owner had no idea how much water was actually trapped.

The roofing contractor was able to repair the damaged areas, restore the entire roof using emulsion, chopped fiberglass and aluminum.

Below is another image of the adjacent building in the same plant. The damage was extensive and required complete re-roofing.

I hate to interrupt the Dallas shootout, but I have a question on the picture. What is the source of the heat shown?

Tim- if you remember my roofing career started out in foam and coatings, from an installer to SPFA and MFG inspector. From licensed roofing contractor to roof consultant I needed to be a roofing expert and be a certified installer in as many roof systems as possible.

Now as I move into insurance adjusting and appraisals I'm one of the very few adjusters that not only knows construction, most roof systems, including chopped fiberglass, but also am a certified Infrared Thermographer. I will be graduating from Vale and hopefully be an expert in policy, investigation and subrogation.

Life can be exciting and financially rewarding with education matched with experience.

I applaud your calmness. It's an easier mental state to maintain when you are on your side of the equation than on our side.

There is nothing wrong with roofing education, I'm all for it. There is one company that I know of that may have more chopped glass emulsion experience than we do, and they're in the NW US. I doubt that Kade and those guys spend a lot of time taking a bunch of classes on various roofing systems when they essentially just do one system and there isn't likely anyone in the US who knows as much as they do, so who could teach them, and what?

We are that, to a slightly lesser degree. Kade might be able to teach us how to install better chopped glass roofs, but I can't think of anyone else. And I have too much to do to take classes just for the sake of a certificate.

I have a HAAG Engineering certificate for the Low Slope Roof Hail Damage Assessment class, which I took many years ago. It's useless to me - I took the class because Tim Marshall and I seemed to be working the same claims a lot back then and I wanted to see how they think. I have no confidence in their changeable opinions on what can and cannot damage a BUR.

We have branched into SPF recently and immediately got factory trained and certified by BASF to do foam, roofs and interiors. That training made sense because we weren't already experts on foam. That said, getting education on TPOs, mod bits, and other systems that we will never do, might look good hanging in a frame on the wall, but it won't make us better roofers at what we do.

You're right Tim I have only been roofing since 1990's, but have been feverishly educating myself and been a certified installer of many roof systems not just one. I have the understanding to know when to hire roofing technicians who are smarter than myself, like you.

While I may not have as much experience in chopped fiberglass as you, your dad taught me a lot- I have made enough to almost retire on- and for that I am grateful.

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I didn't know that I violated protocol... Letting other roofers know how they can profit from Infrared without investing money in equipment or education by teaming up with a thermographer like you would be a good thing.. I do it all the time. As far as a rookie- just Google me!

edited.