Thermal Imaging Solutions for Property Management and Facilities Operations
NFCF LLC Uses state of the art technology designed by Teledyne FLIR.
We use Thermal Studio Suite for detailed reporting of any findings after an inspection has been completed. By using this software, we can provide professional reporting that is streamlined, simplified, and beneficial information to our clients to make informed decisions.Â
Also, integrating this advanced technology into any type of inspection can quickly identify unknown factors and enhance quality control measures during an inspection from capital projects, unbudgeted roof repairs or replacements, expensive continual elevated levels of pest infestations, energy cost, the list goes on. This technology gives the owner a higher degree of vendor and contractor accountability for their completed or continual ongoing work before a considerable sum invoice(s) are paid out. I can say this type of technology would have saved the companies I have worked for over the last three decades a lot of OPEX and CR&R dollars in the hundreds of thousands range had this technology existed.Â
My objective is to bring this technology into today’s facilities operations cost effectively. Theres nothing more frustrating for an organization, a property manager or service manager in dealing with contractors in addressing quality control issues or warranty work after they have already been paid and the job has been signed off. By using this technology, by far most issues will be identified and addressed to avoid problems down the road. Notable examples of this HVAC and roof installations. As we all know, in this industry it can take some time before bad installation issues show up six to twelve months later or even longer. This technology goes a very long way in addressing this long-time issue.
Thermal technology as of current times has not been fully utilized in the multi-family or residential military housing industry by management organizations, key essential vendors and contractors for several reasons as follows:Â
1. Knowledge and understanding of the technology and application of its use and feasibility.
2. Organizations knowing how to determine and assess a cost-benefit analysis levering thermal technologies.
3. Return on investment (ROI) with site level techs, central service teams, and predictive/preventive maintenance programs with a significant positive budgetary cost reduction impact associated with in-house labor time, material cost, contractor cost, pest control cost, finding sources of mystery water leaks/intrusion areas that can be resident intrusive and costly in multiple ways
4. The few known for hire companies out there are extremely expensive and mostly cost prohibitive to use as an effective resource within the multi-family industry arena on a continual basis.Â
5. Not fully understanding how these technologies can be used in a value-added investment addressing the labor market skill set shortages in HVAC, electrical, plumbing, pest infestation elimination, and routine use.Â
6. Organizational and facilities leadership understanding means and methods of employing thermal technologies with service techs in day-to-day use and the site level.
7. Not knowing the benefits and use of thermal science in a qualitative and quantitative way
8. Leaders understanding how to embrace thermal technology and science as an organizational cultural core value impacting site level services tech(s) morale and resident(s) satisfaction
Quick note on what thermal imaging does:
In comparison to the following cameras Megapixels: Apple iPhone 15 Front camera 24MP back camera 48MP, Nikon D810A 36.3MP, and the Cannon EOS R5 45MP. All great cameras. None of these cameras are designed for thermograph and this is only a comparison in the number of megapixels as an example.Â
The Teledyne FLIR E-96 camera has 640X480 pixels 307,200 Pixels normal settings and max 1.2MP with each pixel measuring temperature.Â
Great news! At NFCF LLC We can provide this force multiple technology ability to our clients by providing the service when needed in a cost-effective way with measurable results, or better yet help our clients create their own in-house capability as a supporting partner with them. Below are some notable examples and enhance facilities operations capabilities this technology can bring to the table for small and large property management companies enhancing their labor force that will significantly impact OPEX and CR&R budgets.
Benefits for employing Thermal Imaging Technology
Thermal imaging is the most advanced none-destructive form of identifying conditions and assessing defects and issues that may affect residents, employees, contractors, financial performance, safety, and quality assurance of assets. Thermal inspections also have a significant impact on energy utilization which benefits any property management company and the environment. Thermal technologies empower owners and organizations with understanding the physical behavior of the building as a system and how this impacts energy efficiency, and durability  is essential.
Building Exterior Inspections
Building Interior Inspections
Roof Inspections
From property management companies owning assets or fee managing them on behalf of a client(s). It’s imperative for roof inspections to be a part of monthly property site inspections and thorough capital needs assessments for five, ten, or 20 plus years assessments involving large sums of capital reserves dollars. Such as building roofs from high-rise, mid-rise, and garden building apartments. This could consist of dozens and even hundreds of building roofs within their organization. Generally speaking, from a capital needs aspect owners should get 20 to 30 plus out of a new roof depending on type of roof, geographic location, and environmental condition affecting the roof(s).Â
NFCF LLC Understands in property management that monthly inspections get missed by the site teams and often as an indirect consequence creating thousands of dollars in costly mitigation interior repairs from water damages, resident(s) displacement and satisfaction, extensive roof repairs, and impacting the site budget adversely.Â
NFCF LLC Will work with any partner or client in mitigating costly issues associated with roofs. We can provide monthly, quarterly, and semiannual inspections providing useful information with detailed reporting from a proactive position.Â
NFCF LLC Will also provide detailed roofing capital needs assessment reports for the following out laying yearsÂ
Building Systems Performance, Essential Systems Inspections for High-Rise, Mid-Rise, Multi-Family Garden buildings, and Residential Homes
Mechanical Inspections
Electrical Inspection
When electrical connections and components break down unexpectedly, a lot can go wrong. Labor loss, unplanned downtime, and electrical fires are all possible outcomes, and they can be costly. Electrical connections and components tend to overheat before they fail, but this can be difficult to detect with the naked eye. Thermograph professionals can easily and reliably catch temperature problems identifying areas of concern and rapidly detect and locate temperature issues of electrical components and equipment. Problems including loose connections, bad contacts, fuse issues, unbalanced loads, electrical shorts, cable damage, busbars, and result in elevated temperatures that can be clearly detected. Reports with a diagnostic corrective action report generated using FLIR Thermal Studio Software can be organized by level of priority. This provides property management organizations the ability for scheduling planned repairs and avoiding costly after hours on-call and resident inconvenience.
Electrical examples above of high heat thermal signatures from TELEDYNE FLIR
Industry Compliance Electrical Inspections
HVAC System Service, Trouble Shooting, Diagnostic Assessments, Repairs, and Preventive Maintenance
Having been a service tech, service manager, trainer, and Facilities Director of Maintenance in the residential market for over three decades. HVAC has always been the biggest challenge to address on a continual basis from staffing shortages, in-house skillset creating a backlog of work orders, contractor availability, contractor cost vs volume of repairs and replacements needed, repeat work orders driven by miss diagnoses of HVAC system for a multitude of different reasons. This issue has always impacted property management companies on varying levels impacting site teams’ morale, resident dissatisfaction with the time it takes addressing their issues. The one other big area impacting any organization as a whole or site specific is the negative impact this challenge has on meeting budget(s). Sites can very quickly lose the ability to stay within budget if there is not a way to address what has already been mentioned above.
Over the past four years. I have invested a lot of personal time in research and development, financially, and along with training courses in thermal imaging technologies. All of this to develop a realistic framework for property management companies with a focus at the site level maintenance staff with service techs and mangers in mind that’s cost-effective, budget friendly, objective-oriented, providing new advanced trouble shooting knowledge, means and methods employing thermal imaging and makings what seems a complex technology into simple to understand its applications and use within the multi-family industry in the day-to-day service tech world.
Organizational and Property Level Relatable Maintenance Experiences from Service Managers and Techs
These examples are not all inclusive of utilizing thermal imaging technology. However, they are actual real-world examples as apart of developing means and methods for integration with entry level techs entering the workforce to more advanced techs with many years of experience giving them the abilities to significantly increase their productivity and quality of work. As a side note, this has had an unexpected impact on an area I did not anticipate when I started this 4 years ago. The site employee(s) engagement level, morale, and motivation significantly increased once empowered with this technology.
First example:
When I was a facilities Director for a large multi-family company. I had a service manager on a 552-unit apartment garden style site that had 27 AC’s not working or cooling. He was understandably completely frustrated as his techs were not developed to a point being able to trouble shoot basic and more complex HVAC issues. The site was over budget YTD in mid Q2 by $88K and the contractors wanted $47K to address the known issues with possible additional change orders for unknowns which undoubtedly would have happened. After being informed of this, my regional maintenance manager and I went to his site and spent a full day trouble shooting the 27 AC’s. In that one day, we fixed 14 of the 27 AC’s and identified the parts needed to address the other 13 down ACs of which all of them but two were fixed in the next two days.Â
Without the use of the thermal imagining technology and smart HVAC/R probes and even with my regional maintenance managers 15 years’ experience in HVAC along with my twenty-five plus years of experience this would have taken us several days to trouble shoot all the AC units not including repair time with standard general industry HVAC tools and equipment. The two contractors had estimated 1 to 2 weeks’ time. We were able to turn this into an all-encompassing teachable moment with mentoring, training, improved trouble shooting skillset, resident satisfaction, and only impacting the budget by $11K in material cost as labor was awash with no overtime involved. This technology enhanced the site team morale and positively affected residents’ satisfaction in just a few hours.
Second example:
When I was a facilities Director for a large multi-family company. One of my regional maintenance managers called me about a roof leak on a 22-story high-rise 150-unit building that had been going on for several months to no avail with multiple roofing contractors finding the location of the source leak. They did find several suspected areas of concern and repaired these locations with no guarantees at a cost of $12K. Also, not to mention the cost associated with repeated environmental mitigation work orders for interior units and common area repairs was just over $17K. After talking with the contractors one of them was using thermal imaging technology. In conversations with the roofing contractor inspection tech, I determined he was not trained and has little knowledge of how to use the technology. I met with him and my regional maintenance manager in the early morning hours to inspect the roof. Once again, this was turned into a teachable moment of opportunity even for the contractor roof inspector. With my thermal imaging camera, I identified two areas for leaks and three areas of probable source leak locations. All five areas were addressed and there have been no reported or identified roof leaks for the past 18 months.Â
Considering the service manager, regional maintenance manager, had the resources and training this could have been addressed 19 months earlier during the monthly building inspection that includes roof inspections. Cost of training and thermal camera, $7.5K. Cost of roofing repairs and mitigation $29K. Cost of resident inconvenience, reputation management with third party owner, and employee’s frustration with unsolved roof leak for months. I would say way more than $7.5K in cost at that time.
Notable Key Points for Thermal Imaging Use in The Multi-Family Housing Market
Empowering Service Techs Technical Abilities by Using Thermal Imaging Cameras will Reduce In-House Labor Hours, Material Cost, and Contractor Dependency
Thermal Imaging and Underground Utilities and Sprinkler Systems
Thermal Imaging for General Project Management and Quality Control (QC) for New Construction and Renovations
Excellent Real Example how Thermal Cameras can Impact an Organization
While inspecting a unit with a stale musty odor, I was able to narrow down the most probable location just above the kitchen cabinets. Once I was confident in the source location. I used a borescope camera to inspect the interior of the wall cavity. I identified moister within the wall cavity and had the cabinets removed along with the drywall in areas affected.
After a short root cause analysis. I determined the the source of moisture was coming from an uninsulated galvanize sheet metal duct from the units interior HVAC system. The duct was developing condensation due to temperature deltas within the wall cavity. While inspecting the interior unit earlier in the process. I had already confirmed the unit had no resident cause drywall damage holes and all pass through drywall penetrations were correctly sealed.
This brings us to expanding the root cause analysis into the adjoining two units. After inspection of the two units one unit during the renovation phase did not have all the drywall pass throughs sealed. In conversations with the resident they confirmed they never ran their AC and always kept the windows open even on hot days.
My total time invested to resolve this issue was just under one hour and one visit. Site team time and contractors was well over 20 hours and countless resident
interruptions.
Teachable moments and lessoned learned for Property Management Companies:
• It pays for itself to integrate thermal technologies in a cost effective way within facilities
• Average cost for an apartment site asset is around $ 700 to $3,200 with variables. This would include training, thermal camera, and specialty equipment
• Ongoing support and training from NFCF LLC is priceless for any organization from the corporate level all the way down to the site maintenance team
• The cost to the site in this event was just over $8K spent and the issue still not resolved
• The price of a resident(s) experience being negatively impacted due to the length of time to resolve this issue and displacement. Reputation Management
• This unit and adjoining units were renovated one and a half years earlier. This brings up several questions. One - The renovation scope did not include replacement of
outdated duct. Two - The insulation of existing old none-insulted duct work. Three - Quality control measures during the acceptance walk through phase
This unit was turned twice by the on-site maintenance team after the renovation completion. Had the site maintenance team been trained and had access to thermal
camera this incident never would have happened and $8K of lost revenue would have been preventive.
If you have read this far, then I'm sure you have experienced these types of events multiple times over in your career as a site manager and maintenance supervisor. By embracing this technology organizations can save thousands of dollars and even hundreds of thousands of dollars for larger organizations.
