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LB Insights is a blog series featuring Lerch Bates technical experts who cover industry topics with the Building Insight you trust and expect from LB consultants.
Visual Observations and reporting are critical throughout construction, but what if there was a way to see a full view of your building at any given point in time without tearing down walls? Lerch Bates utilizes a variety of imaging techniques to provide a snapshot and timestamp of any building condition at a point in time. Our tools and expertise can help diagnose building issues that may not be visually accessible. Utilizing the following imaging methods and tools, Lerch Bates provides additional value to our clients while minimizing additional damage to the building and cost to our clients during building diagnostics.
One of the most tried and true tools in the LB arsenal, Infrared Thermography (IR) imaging is used as a diagnostic tool, especially when it may be necessary to remove parts of the roof or wall to investigate. Lerch Bates often performs IR scans of newly completed roofs to verify proper installation or identify targeted areas for repair. In areas where there is water in the roof assembly, the temperature difference between the cooler wet area and the area at the ambient temperature will show in the images.
Similarly, this method can be used in walls to show where there are areas of insufficient insulation thermal breaks, or pathways for air and water leakage into the building. When the building has significant differences between the indoor and outdoor temperature (like a heated building on a cold day), the IR camera will allow our team to see where there are heat signatures on the cool building, indicating an issue.
Lerch Bates’s team has years of experience interpreting these results and preparing appropriate recommendations. It is one thing to diagnose an issue with your building, but our team will guide you to the correct repair and support you until the issue is fixed. We can even manage the project for the best outcome.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much would a 3D scale model be worth? With Matterport, Lerch Bates can provide you with a full digital model of your building before, during or after renovation or construction. These models can be used for a variety of things, whether you are collaborating with a remote team, uploading to design software to help kick off your renovation, or even for marketing your building. Matterport uses a system of digital images to create a rendering of the building with measurements, building walkthroughs and a visual representation of the building condition at the time of the scan.
Internally, our team uses Matterport software to collaborate across the company. With a visual model of the building available, the best experts throughout the country can gain insight and collaborate to provide the best recommendations for your building.
When there are places that ladders just can’t reach, Lerch Bates’s FAA licensed pilots can use drones to safely access and observe areas of the building that may otherwise be missed. We provide onsite visual inspections during construction to provide documentation of the progress made on the building during construction. As areas of the building become inaccessible, we can use drones to continue to monitor progress on critical areas of the building that are not easily viewed.
Drones are helpful in planning and conducting existing building assessments as well. Lerch Bates is often called to provide an existing condition assessment for aging buildings to determine a full scope of repairs. Performing an initial sweep of the building exterior with a drone provides valuable information about where to focus subsequent observations.
Getting the full picture of your building can be a challenge, but with these tools Lerch Bates can provide full visibility into your building systems. Contact our team at any point in your building’s lifecycle to protect your asset and increase cost savings.
