Partners · Roof consultants & commercial roofing contractors
The survey is ours. The client stays yours.
We run infrared roof moisture surveys for roof consultants and commercial roofing contractors. Our procedure follows ASTM C1153-23. The package drops into your report or your estimate. Survey and documentation are the whole of what we sell.
01Terms
- Client
- Stays yours
- Report
- Your name, or ours
- Cores
- Your crew, at our marks
- Practice
- ASTM C1153-23
- Our product
- Survey and documentation
02Independence
Nothing to sell that a survey result could justify.
A roof consultant is expected to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. So here is our position, before you have to ask.
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01
We sell no roofing.
We do not install, recover, coat or repair roofs. There is no product behind the survey, and no margin in what it finds.
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02
One party per project.
On any single project we work for one party. If a second party on that project wants our data, we disclose it. The parties decide.
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03
Your client stays yours.
We do not solicit your client. Findings route through you unless you authorize otherwise.
03Division of labor
We document. You conclude.
The practice we follow locates wet insulation. It gives no method for finding the cause of the moisture or where it got in.
That is where our data stops and your judgment starts. Recommendations are not our default output.
Ours
Yours
Locate and document thermal anomalies across the roof.
The cause of the moisture, and its point of entry.
Mark each one on the roof surface and on the plan.
Whether the roof is repaired, recovered or replaced.
Verify what the scope permits, and state what was verified.
The recommendation to your client.
Report what the data supports, and nothing past it.
The client relationship, before, during and after.
04Conditions
The window is a precondition, not a preference.
Our roof moisture surveys follow ASTM C1153-23, the recognized practice for locating wet insulation with infrared imaging. We don’t reproduce the standard. This is a statement of alignment, not a certification.
Our operating conditions
- Window
- Night, from about an hour after sunset until sunrise
- The day before
- A day of sun on the roof
- Rain
- None appreciable in the previous 24 hours
- Wind
- Under about 15 mph at survey time
- After a warm, cloudy day
- A later start, and the first area re-imaged before we leave
- In winter
- The inside-to-outside temperature difference carries the contrast
- Conditions not met
- The survey moves
Four factors govern the contrast: daytime solar loading, the rate of cooling after sunset, wind, and the inside-to-outside temperature difference.
We hold the window. Published practitioner material describes treating these conditions as guidelines when flying. Our practice does not.
We watch the forecast ahead of the date and schedule backup windows with you.
05Aerial and walkover
Flown or walked, chosen by the roof.
The practice covers ground-based and aerial surveys. We choose by roof construction, area, access, surface and the resolution the job needs.
Aerial covers area quickly and keeps people off a roof at night. It does not replace on-roof confirmation, and it does not remove verification.
What an aerial survey turns on is resolution at working distance, viewing geometry and surface conditions. Pixel count alone settles none of it.
Reflective membranes, ponding, ballast, overlays, rooftop equipment and shading can produce a signature or hide one. That holds from the air and on foot.
Over refrigerated space the contrast reverses. Wet insulation reads cooler than dry, not warmer.
Every aerial survey of ours includes three things.
- 01 Findings viewed live during the flight to confirm coverage, and recorded for study.
- 02 A daylight visual pass within two days, by air photo or walkover, with surface conditions unchanged between the two.
- 03 The flight altitude above the roof, stated in the report.
06Verification
Nothing is reported wet on a thermal signature alone.
Invasive verification is part of the practice, and part of ours. The camera finds candidates. Cores confirm them.
Our coring minimum
- Each roof section
- At least one core, to establish composition
- Dry insulation
- One core or correlated probe reading per section
- Each anomaly type
- One core per roofing system of different composition
- Probe readings
- Count only after correlation with core moisture content
- Capacitance and nuclear meters
- Complement cores; never replace them
Every anomaly ships with its status stated: verified, unverified or excluded.
If the survey finds no anomaly that meets our reporting threshold, that is the finding. The report says so, with the same conditions, coverage and verification record as any other.
We do not cut cores. We locate, mark and document. Your crew or the roofing contractor cuts and patches at the locations we mark.
A warranty-holding contractor may need to make and patch its own penetrations. That exposure is theirs, which is why the arrangement is theirs.
Who cuts and patches is settled per project, in writing, before the survey. There are two arrangements.
A
Verified
Your crew or the contractor takes cores at our marked locations. The report carries what each core found.
B
Unverified
Anomalies ship as located candidates. The report states that our verification minimum was not met and that no anomaly is confirmed wet. It is not described as a C1153 survey.
Every penetration is repaired without impairing the waterproofing. Repair of test locations is written into the scope, not assumed.
07The deliverable
Built to be incorporated, not to compete with your document.
The package comes in layers. Take the ones your document needs.
05Radiometric files
04Edit-ready files
03Imagery
02Marked roof plan
01Signed technical report
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01
Signed technical report
Built around the report contents the practice asks for, stated as ours.
Where a finding needs a number, we report a measured temperature difference, with the emissivity and reflected-temperature compensation used.
- Building identification and use
- Survey type, ground or aerial
- The imaging system by make, model and spectral range
- Wind, outside temperature and cloud cover at survey time
- Cloud cover and precipitation in the previous 24 hours
- Roof surface conditions
- Date and time
- For aerial work, altitude above the roof and the daylight-pass record
- Composition and condition from the cores, with moisture quantity
- Verification results
- Exclusions and limitations
- The practice and edition applied
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02
Marked roof plan
A scaled drawing or air photograph with anomalies located, verification points, excluded areas and measured areas. The percentage of roof area affected can be stated as a measured quantity. We never pair it with a replacement threshold, because no published source establishes one.
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03
Imagery
Thermograms, each paired with a daylight control image.
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04
Edit-ready files
The plan and the anomaly schedule in formats you can pull into your own document.
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05
Radiometric files
On request.
The package drops into your report. It is not built to sit beside it.
08Attribution
Whose name goes on the report is your call.
Option A
Your report
A data and findings package you integrate and issue under your name. The technical record still names who performed the survey and on what equipment. The practice’s report contents include the surveying organization. Your report is your report.
Option B
Our report
A stand-alone signed report from us, delivered to you. You append it or forward it.
Two things hold under either option. We do not produce a report that conceals who performed the work. We do not represent our credentials as anyone else’s.
That is not a preference. It follows from the same ethics rules a roof consultant works under.
09Working with us
What we need before a survey.
Ten items. Most are already in your file.
- 01 Roof address, approximate area, and a plan if one exists
- 02 Membrane, insulation, deck and known overlays
- 03 Roof age, warranty status and known leak history
- 04 Access method, keys, alarms and an after-hours contact
- 05 Occupancy and rooftop operating conditions
- 06 Permission to mark the roof
- 07 Core authorization, and who performs and repairs the cores
- 08 The warranty-authorized repair contractor, where one applies
- 09 File types, turnaround, and whether findings route to the owner or only to you
- 10 Who holds weather-hold and rescheduling authority
Written authorization from the owner is in place before every visit and every flight.
10Credentials
Credentials and coverage.
- Flight
- Aerial work is flown under an FAA Part 107 remote pilot certificate.
Next step · A free quote
Start with the roof, and whose name goes on the report.
A short call covers the roof, its area and access, the verification arrangement and the deliverable format.
We reply within one business day.