In this edition of LinkedIn Roundup, we look at how your heating systems may be oversized and the proper way to use thermal imaging.
Your Heating System Might Be Working Against You
A client called me last winter about comfort. 6°C outside, brand-new cold-climate heat pump, solar panels, $40/month electricity bill. The house felt cold.
I walked in and immediately noticed the heating system blower wasn’t running. At all.
Modern variable-speed central-split heat pumps are designed to have blowers that run almost continuously at low speed — that’s how they distribute heat evenly. When the thermostat isn’t communicating properly with the unit, you get a system that blasts until the hallway sensor is satisfied, then shuts off completely. The living room, the bedroom, anywhere near exterior walls? Undertreated.
No heating contractor ever got a callback for oversizing. So systems tend to run big, and controls get less attention than they should. The fix here wasn’t insulation or new windows — it was getting the thermostat to talk to the heat pump correctly. Essentially a service call.
If you’re uncomfortable in a reasonably well-built house, check the heating system before spending money on the envelope. It might be a less satisfying answer than “add insulation,” but sometimes it can be the right one.
Thermal Imaging — Pattern Recognition, Not Colour Recognition
Thermal cameras use a sliding colour scale. Whatever is coldest in the frame shows up purple or blue — including a perfectly fine window next to an insulated wall. The colour itself isn’t the finding.
What you’re looking for are patterns. “Blocks” of missing insulation or flame-like or wispy streaks that indicate air movement. When a house is depressurized during a blower door test, cold exterior air gets drawn across warm interior surfaces and leaves a distinctive signature on the camera — flowing, dynamic, different from the static cool of a window or an exterior wall.
A uniformly cool window is normal. A wispy cold streak rolling out from the gasket of an operable window is a finding. A flame pattern around a pot light or chimney penetration is significant.
I explain this at the start of every walkthrough because most homeowners have seen thermal images online and assume anything blue is a problem. Getting that sorted early makes the actual findings make sense. They’re looking for the same thing you are instead of reacting to the colour palette. “We’re looking for patterns, not colours” takes about ten seconds to explain and changes how the whole conversation goes.