Real Estate Update

Posts Tagged ‘Building’

 

What is link building?Link building is the process of increasing link popularity and search engine exposure through many channels including, Link Exchanges, Directory Submission and many more.There are three types of link building.1. Link Exchanges2. One Way Link Building3. Three Way Link BuildingThe most popular and cost effective link building technique is exchanging links with different and theme related websites. One way link building is very costly which is usually obtained through paid inclusions. Three ways link building involves lots of work and is time consuming process in which there will be three domain names which will participate to get one way link to each other.Search Engine Rankings usually improves with one way links and it’s more effective than link exchanges as there won’t be links going out from the website and hence the credibility of website does not decrease. Link exchanges are not much effective when compared to one way but plays a vital role and usually they are permanent links, and cost effective because of that it’s more popular than any other link building techniques.Why link building?Link building is one of the hardest things to do when creating a successful website, on little or no budget. Link building is one of the most and crucial part of any search engine optimisation campaign. The basic concept of link building is to get as much links of your sites sprinkled all over the Worldwide Web. Link building is an important off-page optimization factor that helps boost natural search engine rankings. Link building is a process wherein there is a creation of inbound links to your own site. Link building is difficult, frustrating and time intensive. Link building is simple emailing sites and asking for links. Link building is a very specific field that comes under the term SEO.Links to your site are not the most important factor in determining your ranking and you will have to have a well-optimized site to rank well, however, when all else is equal (i. Links that should count are still the key to rankings (in Google, at least — and MSN and Yahoo. Links are what make the World Wide Web go round. Links are the most objective and unbiased evaluation of a website’s worth…. Links are crucial in almost every SEO strategy to help improve your sites ability to rank high in the search indexes, draw traffic and ultimately generate revenue.Link building is a tedious process, but one of the best for getting free (sometimes not), targeted hits from other websites. Link building is really “link buying” in whatever format it winds up being. Link building is an indispensable part of any effective search engine optimising strategy and is specially designed to establish and improve your website’s link popularity. The act of executing a link building campaign builds invaluable market knowledge Link building is self-fulfilling. In conclusion, link building is not only for increasing link partners and search engine rankings, its also used to create partnerships and establish profitable relationships with other webmasters.Link Building Methods:there are many link building techniques.the most effective are…..1)Social book marking

2)Directory Submission

3)Article submission

4)block Commenting

5)forum posting and many more..Top Reasons To Hire A Link Building Company linke Traffic Assistants:Link building has never been on the website owner’s list of favorite things to do. It is time-consuming, but then again, a website never gets to the top of search engine results without any links to it.What does a website owner do if he is not fond of doing it himself? Hire a link building company to do the link building. Outsourcing your link building may cost a lot of dollars, but there are reasons that tip the balance in favor of outsourcing.Link Building Takes Time.If you don’t have the time for link building, chances are, you’ll never have other websites linking to you, unless if other website owners find you first.Don’t think that it only takes an email to get other website owners to link to you. The reason why link building takes time is because most website owners or web masters do not respond on the first try, or even on the second.Keep in mind, there are so many other websites trying to get as many links as they can. This floods the webmaster’s inbox. It definitely takes a strategy and a bit of creative thinking to get webmasters to notice you and make it impossible for them to refuse your request for a link.Link-building companies make your life easier because they’ve been at it long enough how to get the intended results right away.It Can Be FrustratingWhen you try link building, you are trying to sell your site to other website owners, which is not an easy thing to do if you are a new website.Expect website owners to reject your sales pitch on the first attempt (sales is a field of rejection). This makes it very worth it to outsource link building; link building companies are used to the cycle of contacting webmasters or website owners, making a follow-up, and facing rejection.Important In Search EnginesThe triumvirates of Google, Yahoo! and MSN have factored in link popularity and link quality in their search engine algorithms. Thus, your website will not rank if you don’t have any links to your site.Link popularity is measured according to the number of inbound links to your website. Link quality, on the other hand, evaluates the quality of the links. Link building companies can get you those quality links since, in all likelihood, they already have a database of the websites related to your own.In choosing a website, check out their link building strategies, whether they really take the time to find the best sites that are related to your website or just generally harvest and link. There’s a very good reason for this.Google once penalized websites that scooped 200 to 300 sites in one month. Some websites even disappeared from Google’s index altogether due to a dampening filter. The overdone link building efforts were though to be the link-building version of spamming. Other content rich websites take one year to build 100 relevant links.

 

The field of architectural technology has advanced quite rapidly during the past several years. The new developments in alternative building techniques tend to make traditional methods obsolete. It is therefore an immerse responsibility for architects to keep up with recent developments, to gather information effectively, to investigate alternative building techniques and to embrace a broad vision towards the future. Today the challenges that lie ahead of us are not only the concerns of cost, time or workmanship in building constructions, but also construction debris that makes up almost half the total municipal waste stream according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports. An article in Architecture Magazine, Gina Goldstein in her article named, Waste not, Want not, stated “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports the gritty truth: Constructing, renovating, and tearing down residential and commercial buildings in this country produced almost 136 million tons of waste in 1996, the equivalent of 2.8 pounds per person per day. Despite increased recycling, most of the debris still winds up in landfills, where its sheer volume imposes an enormous environmental burden.”

If the current trend continues, we will spend more time and money to clean up the construction debris than building our future environment. In other countries, efforts for recycling building had already begun. In Portland, Oregon, 92 percent of the Portland Trail Blazers basketball Arena was recycled. One of the more traditional strategies involving recycle is to maximize the reuse of the building materials. In Europe, EPR laws require companies to take back and recycle the building products. At the present time deconstruction costs little more than the traditional demolition; however the cost difference will soon to be changed when contractors gain experience and the market for recycled building materials grows. In the United States, there are currently no such laws to force the building industry to practice techniques for disassembly. It will not be hard to imagine in the near future that private industry may be forced to change current building practices, when the landfills over flow and there are increases in charges for waste dumping. The key to all these problems is to design recycled architecture or green architecture. The design of recycled architecture begins from simple disassembled screws rather than permanent nail, uses of recycled materials to the design of recycled construction systems. Every designer wishes his or her designs could last forever; however most of these buildings will not even outlast a man’s lifetime. The effort to reduce our construction debris begins with a design concept in the environmental protection. The building has to design for disassembly in the preliminary design stage rather than waiting till its demolition. In most architecture schools today, the education often focuses more in the construction of the building rather than deconstruction of the building. With recycling in mind, a slight modification of our current building practices and school curriculum will lead our next generation to a better life.

The importance of the material technologies in building systems is previously described. It is essential for architects to learn the properties of the basic materials- their strength and weakness in building systems; however the curriculum should not exclude new materials in building systems such as plastic, paper, hybrid composite materials, shape memory alloys, and piezoelectric cells in anti-earthquake superstructure designs. Plastic is the product of the late twentieth century. While it’s usage and influence are growing rapidly in many industries, plastics comprise less than one percent of the total tonnage of construction materials used in the United States. The new carbon-fibre time trial bicycle (developed by Lotus Engineering and ridden by English cyclist Chris Boardman) wouldn’t have won a gold-medal if bicycle designers had not used carbon-fiber tubing to build its ultra-light frame. Diaphanous plastic bubbles floating at the every edge of the atmosphere may one day take the place of more expensive (metal-made) satellites and conventional spacecraft. The material scientists have now chemically stitched molecules together into polymer sheets, and this new plastic material lasts much longer than other types of polymers now used for the same purpose. What do these technological/material discoveries mean for architecture? To begin with, they mean that some of the fatal disadvantages of plastic such as its durability now can be conquered. Polymer science is advancing rapidly. Plastic now can be used in structural framing. New discoveries are announced weekly in scientific journals.

Shape memory alloys are metal alloys which when conducted by heat and electricity will modify into different shapes and properties. This special quality of shaped memory alloys is great for structures to prevent damages in earthquake. Other technology includes piezoelectric structural material that can dampen vibration range from the sway of a building to the vibration of an air conditioning unit. By significantly reducing the vibrations found in the building we can reduce the wear and tear placed in structural components. These are few examples of the new building materials for building industry. The new building materials are not only supplanting older materials for many conventional applications; they are also recyclable and stimulating architects to innovate new types of structures and to experiment with architectural designs. The alternative construction systems should also take into considerations, such as prefabrication in wall panel systems, tilt concrete wall system, and lift slab construction…etc. The works of Buckminster Fuller and others are alternative choices for building constructions, and expected to work well under some situations. The 21st century architect should involve a broad spectrum of new building materials and new construction systems. The awareness of such advancements pushes forward the wheel of the evolution in architectural technologies.

In the past few years, the price of a personal computer has dropped considerably. Computer is reaching every households of the world. More than seventy millions of people in the United States ‘surf’ the Internet. The computer has touched yet another territory of our humanity- our shelter. Intelligent building is not mere science fiction, but a current new building system practice. Intelligent building uses a highly integrated computer technology to make heating, cooling, lighting, communications and every familiar aspect of our shelter more convenient and efficient. The study of intelligent buildings commences from the automated system management, case study, and the design to the implementation. The study of TRON building or Gate’s house, failure or success (it remains to be seeing), will greatly prepare us to the next century where a more fierce technology evolution will anticipate to take a place. An effective education in architectural technologies brings forward a new vision to our future. The automation in building systems is part of that vision, which requires further research, development, and study.

As architects of the 21st century, there is always a two-fold concern with architecture demonstrated by the previous history of mankind. The first is the philosophical and artistic point of view, which addresses architecture as an aesthetic form. The second is the architectural technologies and engineering point of view, which acknowledges structure as a built form. This is the two-fold nature of architecture; architectural technologies should assist architects to design a better-built environment. Architects must fully and quickly digest the new information in order to pass it on to their students to learn, to expand, and to mold it into a working technique. There are also some qualities of construction materials that should be noted by architects/engineers, including their colors, smells, sounds, and textures, which can never be adequately delineated by drawing. The benefits of alternative building techniques take on a simple approach that reflects on the constant evolution of our humanity. Our future still lies in the past and the present; thus, without the past and the present there is no future.

 

The World Bank, the United Nations Development Program (U.N.D.P., the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (O.E.C.D.), the United States Agency for International Aid (U.S.A.I.D.), the Department for International Development (D.F.I.D.).  Capacity building with its emphasis on “capacities to be developed” has always been fundamental to technical cooperation. However, “promoting long-term self-management practices, local knowledge and participation, and the dynamics and interrelationships among the various actors and levels of national programs, groups and organizations [shifts the focus of these international donors] from a traditional donor-driven, input-oriented, cost-benefit and expert-led practices”.  Also, the goals of the various local actors, national programs, groups and organizations have always been internally consistent in their need to build capacities. They include:· healthcare workers concerned about improving health delivery practices through building the necessary human resources and training infrastructure for training healthcare professionals, and for building capacity to provide healthcare services;· innovative public media organizations concerned about perfecting their reporting standards to meet the need for diverse and analytic perspectives on development information; · the judicial system concerned about improving the efficiency of the judicial and legal system to provide improved access to justice;· environmentalists concerned about ecological degradation; · and good governance activists who at all times object to the chronic incompetence of governments.

Some of Sierra Leone’s good governance advocates are anticorruption government watchdog groups that promote an anticorruption and capacity building agenda. The Campaign for Good Governance (C.G.G.), for instance, “exists to increase citizen participation in governance through advocacy, capacity building and civic education in order to build a more informed civil populace and a democratic State”.  The C.G.G. organizes anti-corruption training for leaders in various sectors of civil society, lobbies for good governance practices in both national and local government, tracks governance problems, and publishes findings on government in order to educate civil society. Capacity building is what they believe is key for government to improve governance. Other capacity building voices such as the World Bank attributed half the success of democratic institutions to the notion that institutions that do not build their capacity are neither relevant nor creative. In its “World Bank Assistance Strategy” for Sierra Leone put forward early in 2007, the Bank has sought to “facilitate good governance through public financial management reforms; supporting capacity building for Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) implementation in selected sector ministries and local governments and continuing to promote private sector development”. For good governance advocates, therefore, finding some ways to address the challenges of capacity building has always being a high priority.

The existing capacity building programs in Sierra Leone are quite weak and hardly yielding any results. The Decentralization Secretariat (DecSec) of the Government of Sierra Leone that was established under the Institutional Reform and Capacity Building Project (I.R.C.B.P.), funded by the World Bank has its problems and does not seem to claim any real and direct impact on improving governance capacity. DecSec facilitates the instruction of citizens about the major components of the Local Government Act of 2004 which was “passed as a response to the widely-held belief that corruption and government ineptitude were major factors in the lead-up to the bloody civil war. The Act decentralizes the national government and passes many powers once exclusively held by the national government over to local governments comprised of local councils”. However, when national institutions are weak, their rules and resources can have negative and unproductive effects regardless of the good intentions of public administration reforms and policy support to democratic governance. Major General Jonathon P. Riley, Senior British Military Adviser who served in Sierra Leone in the late summer of 2000 once made some valid points along these lines. The General talked about the three essential elements of governance, security, and essential services (electricity, clean water, basic health and sanitation, communications) which must be put in place to allow post-conflict reconstruc­tion to take place. Major General Riley was serving in Sierra Leone and saw for himself Sierra Leone’s potential wealth, “its enormous natural resources: rice, timber, gold, iron, rutile, diamonds, fish, offshore oil, and hydroelectric power. [The General believes] not only should Sierra Leone be self-supporting in these things, it should, as was once the case, be exporting many of them and earning foreign currency; [also been a country with a] well-educated population [considering, for example,] the fact that it is home to sub-Saharan Africa’s oldest university. But it is not building up its natural wealth, and we have a half-done job to thank for it. It is not too late—but things are still fragile. [The General also made the observation that] the real danger is having fixed security and not the other essentials, we have simply created the conditions for the next military coup”. Increasing the perceived legitimacy of national governance is, therefore, an important objective and requires three things: greater clarity about development programs, a richer understanding of strong and assertive leadership, and a willingness to address corruption. When discipline is not enforced in a society by strong leadership and corruption tolerated, crime and negligence become systemic. 

Capacity Building is about Fostering Civic Engagement

Capacity building, defined as “the process of developing and strengthening the skills, instincts, abilities, processes and resources that organizations and communities need to survive, adapt and thrive in the fast changing world” is not new. Nor is it just about institutions. Institutions have existed and have always had people who run them; but management efficiency, promoting human and civil society development, and community participation have also been the ultimate purpose of capacity building. If strong communities are not built; i.e. communities with a shared sense of belonging or solidarity and able to efficiently utilize resources and skills needed to respond effectively to crises, embrace change, and resolve issues it might adversely affect the usefulness of the framework that social capital concepts give to the meaning of capacity building—concepts grounded on relationships, trust and networks that bolster development of all the other types of capital essential to nurturing sustainable, safe and unified communities.

Capacity building is about the ‘ultimate purpose’ of people willing to learn, to grow and to work together for social change, and the social change produced can support the development of a more democratic and just society. And there is more to the cliché that capacity building is about skills building within individual departments or private sector entities.  The complexities of capacity building processes have kept the Sierra Leone government with the support of international organizations seeking for more capacity building strategies that work. Although a total community participation effort is neither feasible nor desirable, many forms of fostering civic engagement and methods of managing common affairs can be expanded. Fostering civic engagement in development programs enables citizens to become deeply involved in substantive citizenship issues. The University of Sierra Leone, vocational institutes and secondary schools in the country, including the many capacity building seminars and conferences held nationally and internationally, for instance, should support their faculty and staff, and facilitators, to know what engaged learning really is—engaging in the identifying and solving of problems for the nation’s development programs. Opportunities for all professional programs, like teacher education, healthcare and sanitation, and small- and medium-sized enterprises (S.M.E.s) education, should be developed to address and examine social issues in the nation through the use of curricular models that challenge students and practitioners and provide opportunities to apply curriculum with national development programs. Modeling good civic virtue is essential in a participatory democracy. Sierra Leoneans should be taught the value of service and requiring that students and practitioners demonstrate knowledge of what constitutes service. It is a fact that creating good citizens is a way to define patriotism, and it is that connectedness to the community that makes people true Sierra Leoneans. Development educators can be instrumental in introducing new ideas for discourse, providing knowledge on development strategies that have worked elsewhere, as well as reaching out to a multitude of freelance consultants at home and abroad who can provide expert advice on legal, financial, management, health and safety and other aspects of social change. 

In the area of skills transfer, the business sector in developed countries has much to offer the developing world. The $100 million five year Secure the Future program launched by Bristol-Myers Squibb through its corporate foundation, for example, offers a model that utilizes the experience of people in corporate America who understand distribution, management and infrastructure to harness the indigenous business capacity in developing countries. The initial suspicions and lack of trust that characterized the Secure the Future model were overcome by the architects of the program reaching out to essential partners on the ground in southern Africa to foster civic trust for the program. When a sense of wellbeing is therefore felt by citizens and roles and responsibilities of those in government are well defined; when standards are set and degrees of pride people have in the nation of which they are a part are not compromised; and when rewards people get for what they do are clearly determined; capacity building programs’ outcomes become clear. These outcomes become even clearer when feelings of trust by citizens exist for their head of state—reinforcing that true sense of pride people have as Sierra Leoneans.

Capacity Building, therefore, Means Good Governance

Capacity building requires government by officials who are accountable and answerable to the people they serve. But how can “capacity building” mean “good governance” in a nation where leadership at the national level is so weak?  A “weak” leader and a “negligent” president is not leadership. By that formula, citizens do not view the state as legitimate or deserving of respect. They easily collaborate in “rent seeking” activities, for instance, as part of an organized search for private gain by a large number of low level bureaucrats and private individuals.

The basic point is that a lack of strong leadership may simply be unable to control the levers of state power for national progress and to create the enabling environment needed for a burgeoning honest bureaucracy. Corruption at the top produces expectations among low level officials that they should have their share of the national cake. Corruption entails not just the acceptance of bribes as incentive payments by public and private officials, but may also affect the way officials do their jobs. In this regard, the role of the nation’s chief executive cannot be overstated.

Presidential leadership is thus critical to affecting change. It is the president, far more than any other departmental heads who has the stature to enunciate expectations and to enlist participation of his ministers, civil servants, and citizens beyond his government to foster the practice of capacity building and ensure the realization of genuine development outcomes. Tied to Freud’s earlier observations about leadership ascertaining that the leader must represent the group ideally and strongly, and must express the central ideas of the group in a forceful if not particularly reasoned way, the political scientist and presidential scholar James David Barber once wrote, “the President is a symbolic leader, the one figure who draws together the people’s hopes and fears for the political future.” Like how United States President Franklin Roosevelt excelled at providing the kind of inspirational motivation for Americans that marked his very successful leadership, so does the President of Sierra Leone should “articulate an appealing vision of the future, challenge [all Sierra Leoneans] with high standards, talk optimistically with enthusiasm, and provide encouragement and meaning for what needs to be done.” If the President can behave in these ways he will have the ability to influence Sierra Leoneans toward a wide range of behaviors. In the best instances, the behaviors will promote universal values. These behaviors define the true ideals of good governance that are congruent with the values that under gird the peaceful development of a nation.

Still, the Sierra Leone government can do several things to respond to the concerns about a capacity building deficit. The government and its international friends can try to improve stocktaking of capacity building initiatives by establishing mechanisms that permit the comprehensive reporting of people’s participation, persistence, and programs completion, and by taking into account programs’ missions. Further, the government can enable a more robust evaluation of capacity building programs by connecting the improved community outcomes data with program participation data collected by the implementing agencies.

Clearer Connections

Better accountability can and should start at the leadership level. If people believe that capacity building programs are not adequately supported by clear leadership standards, it produces a “corruption trap” where the corruption at the top encourages the corruption of others causing additional inefficiencies. The sustainability of good governance strategies will depend on developing strategies to ensure continuity of effective leadership and management needs. In the facilitation of citizens’ understanding of the major components of the Local Government Act of 2004, for instance, DecSec should be kept accountable by professional norms and standards based on provable performance benchmarks. There is no reason that keeping capacity building programs accountable cannot be consistent with fostering civic engagement.

Also, the work of Statistics Sierra Leone (S.S.L.) as “the central statistical authority for the Government of Sierra Leone [which provides] detailed national income and expenditure survey, a national census, and numerous surveys covering health, education, H.I.V./A.I.D.S. and experiences” should be strengthened in ways that its research can be translated to actionable programs. All capacity building activities should focus on increasing Sierra Leoneans’ knowledge, expectations of and need for good governance, as well as improving the responsiveness, transparency, political will and capacity of government institutions at all levels to deliver services.

Further, aspects of national character and leadership strategies have to be understood as contributing aspects to community programs’ success. The attitude by citizens and government actors that all community programs can succeed, reinforced by a belief that the nation must always strive for greater success, goes a long way to align people and programs, and making a collective commitment to continually strive to improve. There has to be a real solid work ethic. Citizens and government actors ought to know they have to work hard and that knowledge contributes to their success. The Sierra Leone president is responsible for shaping a national character that is defined by Sierra Leoneans’ undaunted commitment to help build their country. The Sierra Leone presidency forms the building blocks of democracy in Sierra Leone, and the functioning of the presidency heavily depends upon the president’s leadership ability. Therefore, the president of Sierra Leone is charged with creating a shared vision for the nation, and he is responsible for developing a climate conducive to motivating Sierra Leoneans and encouraging patriotism.  The national climate exudes excitement when national leadership is strong, and it is the president who creates the climate. Creation of a positive climate is critical to fostering patriotism. Overall commitment to the nation should increase when an open and transparent environment is present and Sierra Leoneans believe their leader is making meaningful contributions to the nation’s development.

 In the End, there is no Single Answer

To address the question of how to reconcile the necessary public and private institutions with capacity building effectiveness, civic engagement programs need to be reinforced. Opportunities for personal growth can be considerably beneficial when actions by citizens are making a difference and what can be harnessed to support local problem solving and self-help action is being adequately harnessed. In the end, there is no single design for strengthening capacity in communities—the ‘bottom-up’ approach is being suggested in many forums, but with a bottom limited in understanding causes, especially a bottom with low educational achievement and restricted exposure to modern ideas and development experiences, the best and viable solutions won’t necessarily be generated. An ‘inside-out’ and ‘outside-in’ approach is also considered necessary, where social associations, connections or affiliations cultivate innovative ideas, knowledge and deliberations, and open up learning opportunities from others’ experiences. ‘Top-down’ support is even more relevant from a leadership willing to work decisively and responsively with the citizens of his nation.  Keeping social change concepts as key to any capacity building action plans advances the goal of active citizenship and civic engagement thus capturing the essence of nationhood. The context that social capital concepts give to capacity building programs are useful, as the focal point of these concepts center around relationships, trust and networks that bolster development of all the other types of capital essential to the advancement of a sustainable, safe and cohesive nation.

Introduction

 

Buildings of all sorts, from homes to factories to high rises, can be troubled by problems related to design, construction and maintenance that can be difficult to diagnose and resolve. The major problems found in buildings include:

 

 

Often the problems – as well as their causes and consequences – simply cannot be seen until after costly damage has been done. At that point the only recourse may be extensive, costly reconstruction. For example, a commercial building, a nursing home, had extensive problems resulting from a poorly designed roof/ceiling insulation system; these included excessive heat loss during the winter months and, as a result, extensive ice damage due to snow melt. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent in various, poorly planned attempts to correct the underlying causes. In the end the owners simply lived with the continued problem because corrective actions were deemed too expensive. Despite this unfortunate resolution, the thermograms helped the owners negotiate a financial settlement with the architects and contractors.

 

When properly used, thermal imaging enables building owners, architects, contractors and inspectors to verify building performance, identify potential problem areas and validate corrective solutions.

 

A great value of infrared thermography is that it provides a means of seeing the invisible thermal signatures related to many of these problems in building. When properly used, thermography enables building owners, architects, contractors and inspectors to locate problems, verify building performance, and validate solutions. When people act on this information, significant savings result and buildings are more comfortable! All surfaces radiate invisible heat energy. You’ve felt this energy emitted by the sun or a stove burner. Infrared cameras are specially-designed electronic devices that detect thermal radiation. They convert this radiation into thermal images, or thermograms, which visually portray temperature differences as small as 0.05°C. These portable, battery-operated instruments record the thermal data either as still, digital images or on conventional videotape or digital video. The image is displayed live in a viewfinder or on an LCD view screen. Different radiant temperatures are shown as different colors or shades of gray. Although it may sometimes be useful to display temperature values, this is often not required in building work. Rather, the temperature differences are normally of most interest. Given the right conditions most buildings exhibit characteristic thermal patterns that can be interpreted by a qualified person. The infrared systems themselves are quite easy to operate and, thus, a number of thermographers conduct building inspections. The tasks of interpreting the imagery, understanding the root cause problems, and finding solutions are all more difficult. Because of this, thermographers often work closely with a team consisting of building specialists, architects, and contractors. The key to using thermography successfully is understanding what thermal patterns are associated with the problems being studied and knowing when those patterns will become visible in the infrared image.

 

Building Applications for Thermography

 

Thermography has been used since the mid-60s to solve building problems. During the late 70s and early 80s, a time when fuel prices rose dramatically, thermography was embraced widely as a tool to help determine building performance. Since then other applications have been developed and refined, especially related to verification of structural performance. The major building-related applications for the technology are detailed below.

 

Insulation Checks

 

Missing, damaged or non-performing insulation will stand out clearly in a thermal image when there is at least a 10°C (18°F) stable temperature difference between the conditioned space and the outside air. It is often possible to do work with less of a temperature spread due to differences in the thermal capacitance of the building materials. The inspection is typically done from both inside and outside. Often the best results are gained from inside because of fewer influences, but a better overall understanding of the building can often be gained from larger views of the outside elevations.

 

Missing, damaged or non-performing insulation will stand out clearly in a thermal image when there is at least a 10°C (18°F) stable temperature difference between the conditioned space and the outside air.

 

It is essential to know the type of insulation in the building and construction details, including how the insulation was installed. Insulation may be in place but not performing; often a destructive evaluation is warranted to establish baseline conditions or understand the exact construction detail. Each type of insulation has a characteristic thermal pattern. A soft foam insulation is susceptible to shrinkage and cracking when poorly installed. Many factors impact the image you will see. When work is done in the daytime or early evening, the impact of solar loading must be considered. The affects of the sun can easily last 6-8 hours on both the inside and outside after a wall has been exposed. This often results in the direction of heat flow being reversed, making for confusing images and misdiagnosis. Wind must also be reckoned with, as it can both quickly eliminate the thermal difference on a surface as well as enhance others. If building problems are wind-related, i.e. “we are cold on windy days,” then it is wise to conduct the inspection with a wind load. The costs of poor performance of insulation are huge. In addition to excessive energy consumption, there may be costly freeze-ups of water pipes or fire sprinkler systems; health issues associated with mold growth in cold spots, damage to roofs and interiors caused by ice dams, condensation, and water intrusion.

 

Air Leakage Location

 

Excessive air leakage can account for up to half of the energy consumed to condition buildings. Of course adequate air exchange is essential for the occupants’ health and safety, but most buildings have a far higher rate of air exchange than is necessary. The root cause is often poor design and/or construction which allows air to move across the thermal perimeter. The problems can be as straightforward as a failed door weather seal or as complex as an air pathway through a plumbing chase in an interior wall or ceiling plenum. The leakage pathway is often complex and, without infrared, extremely difficult to visualize. Air leakage inspections are best conducted when air flow is directed and controlled. This can be accomplished with exhaust fans, specialized blower fan door, or, in larger buildings, by temporarily altering the HVAC system, to create a negative pressure inside. During the heating season the resulting sites of air infiltration appear cooler. The work can be done any time of year as long as the indoor/outdoor temperature difference is greater than a few degrees. Blower door fans can also be used to quantify air leakage rates. This technique is invaluable in predicting building performance and monitoring air sealing work. Most types of insulation are not effective at reducing air movement through the thermal perimeter. Good construction practice includes interior air sealing; if this is not in place effectively, air can move through the interior and exterior surfaces and through the insulation. Unfortunately, fiberglass is particularly susceptible to this problem. Thus, while the insulation may be present, it does not perform as expected when the building is under a pressure gradient. This will typically go unnoticed until the fuel bill is paid.

 

Moisture Intrusion or Condensation

 

As building designs and techniques produce tighter thermal envelopes, moisture (from leaks or condensation) has created more and more problems. The water can intrude through a small crack but it is then trapped between the relatively impermeable building materials. Good building techniques typically must deal with both air sealing and moisture retarders to keep moisture from accumulating inside the wall sections. Locating moisture with thermography is often simple because water has both a high thermal conductivity and a high heat capacitance. Determining the source of the moisture, however, can be difficult. Condensation, rather than leakage, is often the culprit so it is important to identify sources of air leakage that can transport moist air into the wall sections and the cold spots that can result in it condensing. The classic case is that of warm moist air leaking past the insulation in a metal building or mobile home; as it contacts the cold underside of the metal roof it condenses, and often freezes, causing the occupants the think, mistakenly, that the roof is leaking. Building damage due to condensation includes mold growth, brick spalling, roof membrane fastener corrosion and reduced insulation values.

 

Construction of Exterior Insulation and Finish Systems (Eifs)

 

The growing popularity of buildings using EIFS has been accompanied by numerous cases of moisture-related structural damage. Although often attributed to leaking windows, water typically intrudes where sealing or flashing systems were inadequate or have begun to fail. Moisture is then trapped under the relatively impervious foam. In warm climates the decay of structural wooden elements, which can occur very rapidly, is a major problem. Mold growth also often accompanies the moisture resulting in health concerns. Thermography is an invaluable tool to locate moisture in EIFS. Inspections are best conducted in the early evening from the outside after a sunny day with little or no wind. It may also be possible to locate moisture from inside during cooling or heating conditions. The expanded foam insulation boards tend to become more absorbent to water over time.

 

HVAC Performance

 

HVAC systems can be plagued by design and installation problems resulting in excessive energy use and/or uncomfortable buildings. Thermography helps building specialists visualize the otherwise invisible impact of this poor performance as indicated by excessively hot or cold areas. Once these have been located, the root causes can be determined; these may include reversed or misdirected airflow or poorly placed supply ducts, leading to short-circuiting of air directly to the return ducts. Unfortunately many of these problems are a result of poor design; by the time a thermographer identifies them, it may be too late to correct. On the other hand, some problems (such as reversed diffusers) are very easy to correct. It is also possible to visualize air flow itself! Several thermography studies have been conducted by hanging layers of plastic netting in a room. As the air flows through it, the temperature of the netting can be imaged. In most comfort-related cases it is probably as useful to simply image the walls and objects in the room a technique that is much easier.

 

Subsurface Heat Sources

 

Heating coils are being used more and more either to keep outside walkways or entrance ramps snow free or to provide heat to areas and rooms via hot water or electric cables. Thermography provides a quick way to verify location and performance of these subsurface devices. Typically the thermal pattern shows up very clearly even when the heat source is embedded in several inches of concrete. Similarly, water pipes in wall sections can usually be located quite readily. Water leaks from pipes, whether in a wall section or under a slab, may also be located using infrared imaging (although airborne ultrasonics may also be an effective method). To use infrared imaging, a temperature difference must be induced usually by running hot water through the pipe. Note that leaks under concrete slabs may not express themselves because the water is drained away in the sand/gravel base layer and the effects may not be thermally visible from the surface. As a side note, thermographers are often asked to locate reinforcing steel in buildings. This is much more difficult. Heating the steel is not a simple task, usually accomplished with an inductive coil or direct DC-powered heating. Secondly, the heat is often insufficient to express itself on the surface. Other methods, based on sending and receiving radio signals, are probably more useful.

 

Verification of Construction Detail

 

No area of application is more important these days, particularly in commercial buildings, than the verification of construction details and performance. Thermography is being used with great success to verify bond beams and placement of reinforcing in concrete masonry unit (CMU) walls as well as structural elements of pre-cast, tip-up walls. How? The solid portions of the wall change temperature more slowly than the rest. The inspection can be conducted anytime the wall is in a thermally transient condition – typically in the early evening as it cools down. Because the inspection is conducted during construction, deficiencies can be corrected prior to occupation with relatively minor inconvenience. Verification of placement of insulation in masonry unit walls is also more important than in the past due to high energy costs and health concern regarding mold growth in cold wall cavities.

 

Sick-building Syndrome

 

When buildings are too tight or too moist, health-related problems quickly come to the forefront. Grouped together as “sick building syndrome,” these can stem from inadequate HVAC performance, moisture trapped in walls, mold growth on cold, damp surfaces and inadequate air change rates. Many of these can be visualized and diagnosed, at least in part, with thermography to help solve these very serious-and common-problems. Diagnosing these problems is often a very complex process and, given the fact that litigation may be involved, it is not something to be entered into lightly.

 

Facade Delaminations

 

A great deal of work has been done in SE Asia inspecting the facades of large buildings for delaminations. Failures of these materials can result in serious personnel injury. The masonry tiles used to face the buildings tend to change temperature rather quickly when they begin to delaminate compared to the underlying structure to which they were affixed. The diurnal cycle is typically the driving heat source and inspections are best done in the early evening hours after a warm sunny day.

 

Roof Moisture Inspections

 

The inspection of flat roofs, especially built-up roofs (BUR) has been proven for a number of years. The technique allows for the detection of moisture trapped in a roof system; over time this moisture leads to the pre-mature degradation of the roof. The moisture appears warmer at night after a sunny day due to its greater thermal capacitance. The roof surface must be dry and the technique works best on roofs with absorbent insulation. Inspection work can be accomplished either in a roof-top survey or an aerial survey conducted from a helicopter or fixed-wing craft.

 

Standards and References

 

Several important standards exist to support the work of thermographers conducting building inspections. These include, among others, the following:

 

 

Another excellent reference, although not a standard, is the Canadian General Standards Board Manual for thermographic analysis of building enclosures (149-GP-2MP). Numerous building related papers have been published over the years; many are collected on a CD-ROM from SPIE, entitled Selected Papers from the Proceedings of Thermosense, edited by John Snell and Doug Burleigh, available from the SPIE organization.

 

Conclusion

 

When properly used by qualified individuals, thermal imaging technology can play a powerful role in visualizing otherwise invisible building problems and conditions. Contractors and architects alike are both using thermography to assure the performance of their buildings. Building specialists count on thermography to help them diagnose tough problems that, left unsolved, are costly or dangerous. Owners rely on thermography as a tool for commissioning a new building. While a foundation of expertise must underlie the successful use of thermography for building diagnostics, getting started with most of the applications is often not difficult. An appropriate infrared system is required, with proper training and experience for the operator as well. Having supplementary knowledge of building sciences or access to that information is also vital. The primary return on an investment in building thermography is gaining a higher level of assurance buildings will perform as intended and occupants will be more comfortable, often at a lower cost.

 

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