THERMAL IMAGING FOR HVAC MAINTENANCE

In hospitals, climate control is of critical importance to ensure both hygiene and comfort for the patients and personnel. A Swedish hospital was introduced to the Flir thermal imaging camera when it hired an external consultant for electrical maintenance who used the technology. Since then, the hospital used it to inspect and maintain its HVAC system. According to hospital technicians, the camera provides with the right information and allows making well based decisions with regard to maintenance of the heating and ventilation, troubleshooting all kinds of building issues.

The air temperature in the hospital should be 22°C and the air coming from ventilation ducts should be 18°C. To maintain the same, the thermometers installed in certain parts of the building provide feedback for the automated HVAC system used by the hospital. If the technical staff wants more specific information about the airflows and temperature distribution in a room, thermal imaging camera is used.

“From time to time complaints might arise from patients about a room being too hot or too cold but with the thermal imaging camera the staff can quickly assess whether there is actually something wrong in that room. If nothing is wrong, the screen of the thermal imaging camera allows staff to immediately show the patient that the temperatures are perfectly normal in the thermal image. And if there is a fault the thermal imaging helps us to find the problem much faster, allowing a quick repair. The two faults that the technicians sometimes find in the hospitals are HVAC system is clogged radiators or blocked ventilation ducts. The camera also helps inspect fuse cabinets and mechanical components in the ventilation system for faults, check whether the district heating shunt group is cooling the warm water down to the right temperature and even the backup batteries in the server room.

Operation Room:

For different types of operations different ambient temperatures are necessary. And a close control of air circulation is an obvious necessity to prevent contamination with airborne pathogens. The hospital staff therefore regularly checks and closely monitors the HVAC systems of the operation rooms with the thermal imaging camera.

Insulation Defects:

During a recent building project large parts of the hospital where renovated. The Flir thermal imaging camera was used to verify whether the insulation was working perfectly. Inspections showed that there was some warmth leakage at the window stills and that there was insufficient insulation in the attic roof. Also detected was incorrect installation of some of the radiators. Based on the information from the thermal imaging inspections these faults were corrected, ensuring that the new renovated parts of the building are well insulated.”

Thermal Imaging Vs Spot Pyrometers:

Before the use of thermal imaging camera, hospital technicians had to base the maintenance inspections on contact measurements. The personnel had to either touch warm components manually or use a spot pyrometer. Thermal imaging cameras have important advantages compared to spot pyrometers. For instance, the spot meter just gives a value of a small area. Using it for inspections is very labor intensive and it lacks the overview that a thermal imaging camera gives. On a thermal image one can immediately scan an entire area for thermal hot or cold spots and see at once where the problem is located. The details may vary, but a spot pyrometer is basically similar to a thermal imaging camera with one pixel as in that it tells the temperature of one spot. A thermal imaging camera will provide the same accurate temperature readings, but it gives you not one, but thousands of temperature readings at the same time.

Also, with a spot pyrometer it is very easy to miss crucial information as it gives a number while; thermal imaging presents an image of the entire area. Thus, one can immediately see the temperature distribution in the entire area and quickly spot problems that would otherwise remain undetected.

Versatile Tool

Flir Ebx-Series-models have an image quality of up to 320x240 pixels and include the features needed to make well informed building decisions like built-in insulation and dew point alarms. The cameras are specifically designed for building inspections such as, HVAC heating and cooling issues, air flow, moisture detection, insulation problems and other heat related building issues. Other features include Wifi connectivity, iPad compatibility, easy use and built-in picture-in-picture & thermal fusion.