Heating a house for thermal imaging test

sas

Need the guidance of the internet on this one...

By the end of Sept I should (should) be ready to complete my blower door and we'll also have the thermal imaging done on that same day.

My home will not have electricitiy by then. What is the safest way to heat a house over night given the circumstances described? I really want to create a big temperature difference between insider and outside.

I'd prefer not to pass out\die due to CO poisoning.

BryanF

sas,
my immediate thought is industrial gas heaters
but here's two of concerns (maybe you've already considered these):

• will your house be heated up slowly allow things to dry out, so that shrinking etc is kept to a minimum?
• end if September: for the thermal imaging you really need quiet a low external temperature. I'll say no more as there's other people here with more thermal imaging experience.

sas

You and your logic....

Yeah, I have to admit I'd forgotten the entire forced drying effect.
The last thing I would need is to have my airtightness layer (i.e. scratch coat) dry too quickly and crack.

One of the few upsides of taking an age to build my home is that the main structure is very dry. I'm hoping that will stand to me once I move in.
Still having to pour approx. 70mm of screed over 150m2 and plastering the house is going to bring alot of moisture back in.

I think I'll have to leave the thermal imaging to closer to when the house is finished. That will be in the depths of winter one way or the other so if the weather is in anyway similar to the last 2 years I'll get a very good temperature difference.

MicktheMan

Sas,
TI can be successfully done in september in the right conditions. It requires the survey to take place just before dawn on a cool clear night after a warm day. Allow the house to heat up (solar) during the previous day and the retained heat in the structure should suffice to allow an informative TI survey to be done. The TI equipment used will need to be of a reasonably high spec though, but as I said above it can be done.
However, the above is not valid if, for instance, the wall plaster isn't dry as the retained moisture will act as a heat sink and can give ambiguous results.

beyondpassive

Sas,

To check 12 inches of external insulation with virtually no cold bridging, you'd need to get the structure heated up above 15 degrees with the fans pushing positive pressure of +50 pascals and about 8-10 degrees outside with no solar radiation. Do you have a wet heating system, when is it being commissioned?, could you charge the system from the solar panels?

sas

When I do the blower door the UFH won't have been installed. I'll have no way to heat the building.

My plan is to get the first fix electrics and plumbing complete and then complete to scratch coat.

Blower door at that stage.

Will have to go at it later.

Not an awful lot I'll be able to do at that stage as the EWI will be rendered. It would want to be a BAD miss for me to consider repair work.