Speaker 1: Welcome to the Master of the NEZ podcast, the ultimate
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a season electrician and eager apprentice, or just someone who
wants to dive deep into the world of electrical work,
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Speaker 2: Join your host, Paul.
Speaker 1: Abernavi, a true authority in the industry with over thirty
eight years of trade experience, as he electrifies your mind
within depth discussions, expertips, and valuable insights that will keep
you ahead of the curve. Each episode, Paul will illuminate
the complexities of the trade, decode the national electrical code,
and share the latest industry trends, all while empowering you
to take your electrical career to the next level. So
gear up, plug in, and get ready to supercharge.
Speaker 2: Your knowledge because with the Master of the NEC.
Speaker 1: Podcast, the power is in your hands. Now get ready.
Here is your host, Paul Abernavi.
Speaker 2: What up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Master the
NEC Podcast. My name is Paul Abernathy and I am
your host of the show that helps electricians, contractors, inspectors
and electrical professionals stay sharp, stay focused, stay informed, keeps
you ahead of the curve when all things electrically related,
and so thank you for taking the time out of
your day to join me here on the podcast. Hopefully
you're going to get something out of the day's podcast
in today's episode is sponsored by thermal Electrician dot com,
which is our certification program for all electricians who want
to become very proficient with thermography that's specific to electrical applications. Okay,
home inspectors, other inspectors do things building envelope stuff. We
focus this program focuses very specifically on thermal imaging as
it is for electrical applications and again understanding the different
nuances for terminations and ratings and all that kind of stuff.
And so that is who sponsored today's podcast. And so
if you're thinking about becoming a thermal inspector for electrical
if you're thinking about adding thermal imaging to your electrical
contracting business, all those type of things in our program
can literally help you and you might as well get
certified while you're at it. So that's what our program does,
So check it out at thermal electrician dot com. We'd
love to have you all right well in that same mode,
today's episode is entitled why every electrical contractor needs a
thermal imaging camera and how it will transform your service
business because there are a lot of misconceptions out there
when it comes to thermal imaging. I'll give you my brother,
for example, been electrician for damn near fifty years, has
never used a thermal imaging camera in his practice. He's
done a lot of troubleshooting, He's done a lot of
things that's maybe took a lot more time to find
the problem than maybe it would have if he had
a thermal imaging camera. And so again, it's not a
new concept. It's not you know, something that's you know,
just now coming onto the industry. It's been around for
a while. The only difference is is it now we're
thinking of it in a totally different light in the
sense that there is a lot of people that think
they understand thermography and they really don't, and they may
cry wolf, they cause problems, they may be misleading people,
and you know, at the end of the day, it's
like with anything. When you're learning the National Electrical Code,
you want to be as thorough as possible and have
the best resources as possible. Well, we think that the
course that we put together on the thermal electrician is
the best out there. So if you're interested in getting
a certification in that, this is gonna be a good
episode for you from electrician standpoint, because we're gonna talk
about a lot of things that you may not even
think about, and so we're going to kind of dig
into that. So it's really not a situation, it's it's
really about why every electrical contractor out there. You have tools,
you have meters, you have clamp on airprobes, you have
all kinds of stuff, but every electrician out there should
have a thermal imaging camera in their toolbox. And today
they are so freaking affordable. And with our new partnership
with Mousey, you can get the best professional grade thermal
imaging camera at the best possible prices through us, And
we're excited about that partnership and we're gonna be their
exclusive educator and we're going to exclusively promote their thermal
imaging cameras. And so you were to see a lot
of collab between us and them because we believe that
that's what it takes. It needs expert training to fully
understand how our thermal imaging camera works. So it's every
electric contractor should at least have a thermal imaging camera
in their toolbox. And they're not all created equal. Okay,
So again we're more than happy to help talk you through.
There's different price points, different levels of what you may need,
and we can help you with that most certainly. Just
check us out at Thermal Electrician dot com. Or of
course you can go to the parent company Electricalcode Academy
dot com orfasttrackssystem dot com and reach out to us
that way. Even use the Let's Ask Paul if you
want to ask more detailed questions, feel free. We're more
than happy to help you. So today, for electricians in
what they learn, part of all learning should be even
in vocational school now they should be curriculum now on
thermal imaging, and we have a program that we can
put right into a vocational school. Just reach out to us.
We can even show you with demonstration and everything like
that what you need and it's it's amazing if you
use it properly what you can actually do with it.
So it's not really an add on anymore. It is
something that we do that that's not you do. Sometimes
it should become a standard part of your professional toolkit.
It's just like any other tool and the reason for
that is times have changed. We always as electricians, we
end up going to projects after stuff is failed, when
we may be there for one reason and we can
head off of another problem by simply offering the customer
in evaluation. And we're already there. So we're not just
talking about property maintenance. We're not just talking about prevented maintenance.
We're not just talking about data centers, commercial industrial. We're
talking every day residential all the way up to large
scale commercial. You need at least somebody in your company
that understands thermal imaging. Again, it's not just as simple
as looking at a color palette and saying, oh, that's hot,
that's going bad. That is not true. Okay, So again
a lot of misleading information on there. Now, what we're
going to do here in this podcast today, hopefully you
listen to it, is that we're going to introduce a
little bit of seventy B requirements because that's becoming something
that's very important now, not just inn FPA seventy but
seventy B starting to rear its head. Okay, especially for
maintenance and existing systems. We're going to talk about how
to create proper loading because there are aspects of seventy
B that that talk about a forty percent loading threshold
and how you may do that on a simple service
call and it's easier than you think. Okay, we're going
to talk a little bit about residential and commercial applications
how you would apply this. We're also going to talk
about something that people don't think about, and that is
the ice squirt are heating and the failures that are
just waiting to be a problem. Now this is not
just in residential, this is commercial. This is why you
do preventative maintenance because sometimes looking at something you can't
really see the full story of what's going on. And
I'm going to tell you right now, when you get
into a program like ours and you learn things like emissivity,
and you realize that the front of the breaker that's
plastic is not exactly telling the story about what's going
on behind the breaker, and because of the material that
you're measuring on, whether it's something that's giving a reflection,
that's giving false readings, or the emissivity value is very
low versus very high, which means it's going to give
you a more accurate reading to hire. It is if
you don't understand these things, if you don't understand all
of those nuances, then you could be crying wolf. But
you also can be very preventive. And if you're on
a service call, there are things that you can do
that will actually help your customer and you're not selling
snake oil. You're actually selling them something that can save
them a lot of money down the road if you
can find the problem now, and that can be so
we'll talk a little bit about thermal diagnostics and how
that increases your profitability as a shop owner, as an electrician,
and it also gives you a skill set that you
can use in your job interviews and how you go
from company to company or if you grow your own
and also why it's essentially mastering the skills is essential
today for modern electricians. It's essential that you understand not
just how to look at a color palette on a
thermal imaging camera, but understand truly what is going on
in that color palette, how to change again things like emissivity,
how do a quantitative versus a qualitative review, how to
do peer review? Look at two different points on a
thermal imaging camera, and come to a peer review understanding
of what's going on, how the load is transitioning through
things like contact versus fuses versus disconnects. This is some
intricate stuff and it's not just getting a camera, but
truly understanding how it works. And really, every electrician has
a pair of clients. Every electrician has drills. Every electrician
needs to have a thermal imaging camera and they need
to understand how to use it. Now here's the big
difference between us. Okay, this is I'm gonna be real
with you. You're not gonna spend two thousand dollars three
thousand dollars taking a full fledged thermogra thermography course because
you don't need it as an electrician. You want your
training to be focused. We are offering the world's only
specific thermography course dedicated just to electricians. Now, there are
other courses that offer thermography from the electrical aspects of it,
but they don't get into the details like we do.
We talk about conductors and opacity and how it works
and the history behind it and all things to be
aware of and what to look for. We also, they
don't tell you how to sell it, how to sell
it to the customer, how to explain it in clear understanding.
We do all that in our program. So right now
you can get thermography certified Level one, Level two, level three.
But I'm only focusing on electricians, and so we sat
down and created a program just for electricians. Now, you
might say, well, is your programs, what's the certification backed
by Well, I'm being honest with you. There is no
accrediting body for certification when it comes to thermal imaging
and thermography, especially the electrical But the fact that you
are a licensed electrician, your electrical professional already gives you
a leg up because of licensure. And then we as
a corporation, throw onto that very specific training that is
detailed specifically, and it's meeting all the equivalencies of other
testing authorities in our program so that we meet or
exceed the voluntary standards of the industry. But there's no
licensing requirement nowhere, So don't be fooled by that. What's
the difference between our program is it's designed specifically to
give you the electrician. Now, if you're going to be
a home inspector, or you're going to be a building
envelope guy or gal. If you're going to go on
to do those type of things, then by all means,
there's a great programs out there. They can get you
to that level two in level three for that building
envelope type stuff. That is not what we're here for.
I'm an electrician. I teach electricians. Electrical contractors need to
understand how to troubleshoot things, how to use these thermal
imaging cameras in their business, how electricians use them. I'm
not interested in leaky water. I'm not interested in those
type of things. We're only training electricians. There's a difference, folks.
Our programs are designed for electricians. Google me, Google Paul Abernathy,
the Electrical Guru, or Paul Abernathi, Electrical Expert, and you're
going to see we have whether you've never heard before.
I am backed by a foundation of educational knowledge that
serves on code making, panels, written books, done training for decades.
I would not put out a course unless it was
dedicated to teach you what you needed to know. And
here's the other thing about our program. We're going to
continually keep adding to it more and more and more.
So once you're in our program. You become a member
for life. You do not expire out of a program.
Now will add updates and to keep your certification current,
you have to take those updates, but they're included in
your current course. So again, it's it's fundamentally important for
me to for you to understand what we're trying to
aim at teaching you here. Thermography for electricians and applications
for electrical That's it. Nothing else, okay, all right, now,
the electrical industry has shifted. Thermal imaging is no longer optional. Okay,
the electrical literacy has already changed. A lot of contractors
don't realize that right now. And I can tell you
right now, my brother, who is electrical contractor, has been
doing this for damn near fifty years, wasn't even aware
of thermography and how it could impact his business and
maybe help him on service calls or reduce a troubleshooting
time or find something in being proactive. Okay. So in
today's electrical systems, they're more heavily loaded than ever before.
We see the advent of these data centers. Everything is
we're adding all kinds of devices, all kinds of electronics. Yes,
we're re loosing the footprint by more efficient luminairs and
LEDs and things like that. But we're loading the systems
up more with other things that are pushing our grid,
like the evs and things like that. So we have
to adapt to that loading situation, and so you've got
more heavy loading than before. You have more people adding
on to their existing structures in adding additional loads. We
have a lot of systems that are filled with actually
non linear type of equipment nowadays because of the different
drivers and the LEDs and things that we're talking about,
we're increasing this non linear and depending on the system's
design or the system you're working with, that can create
other potential issues with elevated heat that compounded over time
that you need to be aware of or the customer
needs to be aware of. Operating temperatures are getting hotter.
Data center loading is getting hotter. Okay, residential applications things
are getting more loaded than ever before and all the
new stuff. My brother is wiring his house right now
that's basically an electronic housi and he's got so much
technology in there that when you start doing the load calculations,
instead of thinking you're reducing it, you're increasing it and
so it increases the size of the surface. But with
that you have so many other loads that are in there.
The other thing, again is more sensitive electronic equipment. The
more sensitive they are, the more current they're going to draw.
So you and and lastly, I guess aging we're seeing,
you know, things that are aging in ways that we
did not see. This happen twenty years ago. Older systems,
conductors and devices and things were rated for things. Now
the loads that are being put on systems that they
were never initially designed for. Right, So, electrical failures almost
never begin with an arc or a trip, folks, they
begin with heat. The heat starts when you have circuit breakers,
they have overloads, they have thermomagnetic trips, they have all
these things, but they start. How many of you ever
been to a project or job and seeing a breaker
that looks perfectly fine only to have it fail and
look behind it and see the whole back end of
it's melted out. Right, that could have been an even
bigger problem and my result in having to replace the
bus instead of the bus bars inside of a panel.
But you could have prevented that. So with that said,
let's talk a little bit about understanding what's called I
squared are heating. Okay, it's the silent destroyer. So when
we're looking at this, it is I squared are equals
current squared times the resistance. Why does this even matter, Well,
it matters because even the smallest increase in resistance, a
loose termination oxidation, something that wasn't properly torqued or overtrqued
damage to the conductor depending on where you're at in
the country. Again, heavy amounts of corrosion, all those type
of things can lead even loose terminations. Just that in
general can lead to heat rise because it increases the resistance,
which causes more heat, which in turn increases the resistance again,
and then the cycles accelerates over and over and over
again to the point where it finally gets to what
we call a thermal runaway effect. And it's the root
calls of countless electrical failures, not just an industrial and
commercial data centers, big commercial facilities, production facilities, but also
in residential light commercial applications as well. The problem is,
as electricians, by the time we move in in many cases,
there's already an issue, and we may be thinking that
we replace the breaker, solve the issue. However, it could
have damaged the bus, and a thermal imaging camera can
detect this and look at a little deeper than we
could with the naked eye, because we'll be looking inside
the infrared spectrum and understanding how to read a thermography
report and not cry wolf in the process, but being
able to give tangible information to the customer. Now here's
what scares me the most. Okay, if you think about it,
and again, having the electrical practice that I had for
years and not thinking much about it, just being kind
of reactive, fixing things as they as they break or
as they burn up. I've been blessed that I haven't,
you know, again, as an expert, and when I worked
for the City of Alexandria, I got caught out on
a lot of fire calls and looked at it and
I saw things that were definitely due to damage that
would have been detected by a thermal imaging camera. Now
again it's the chicken or the egg. When did you
get there? But there's many times when we have an
opportunity to get in there, and then for a very
savvy electrical contractor, they can sell a maintenance program or
a bi annual or annual or monthly maintenance program on
all of their service projects. You just have to be creative.
But you're not selling snake oil. You're looking for possible issues.
Now again, here's what scares me. A circuit breaker doesn't
need a heavy load to fail. All it needs is resistance. Now,
we've seen breakers that look perfect in the front, but
behind them they're fully melted away. Back to the stabs. Okay, lugs,
completely oxidized, conductors, annealed and discolored due to heat, insulation
cooked in brittle, or if it's thermal plastic, it's actually
dripping plasticizer which is regressing out of the insulating material,
which gives it flexibility, which ultimately is going to reduce
the thermal lifespan of that insulation because we didn't take
loading into effect. But nobody knew these things until you
start understanding the true thermal effects of overloading over current,
mutual current, mutual heating. All these things. The panel looks normal,
the breaker looks normal, there's no odor, there's no trip
there's no indication of danger. It hasn't tripped off yet.
But the thermal camera would have revealed a hotspot behind
the breaker. An abnormal thermal pattern, a temperature rise inconsistent
with the visible load, and a signature of a failure
in progress. But you just looking at a bunch of
color palettes may not understand this. It's just like anything.
You should not be using a tool that you're not
educated in. Now, that's all we're doing. I don't want
to be a reseller of cameras, folks. We're signed a partnership.
We're working with Miles, which is if you don't know
who they are, google them. They are the leader in
thermal imaging cameras around the world, not just in US
but around the world. They make measuring devices as well.
They make thermal optics for they make thermal optics for golf.
But they are an amazing company with amazing technology that
hold hundreds and hundreds of patents. You may have heard
of just one big name here in the US, and
they offer training, but that's internally to them. It's not
genuine third party. So we don't want to be a manufacturer.
This is why we approached Miles and said, you know what,
you can't do what we do, and we have no
desire to do what you do. But we know education,
we know training, and you know thermal imaging cameras. Let's
partner up and offer a third party, unbiased training program.
And to be honest with you, you can get into
our program and use any thermal camming thermal imaging camera
you want. Now, we may offer you some good deals
because of that partnership, but you don't have to buy
our camera to get in our pro. You go to
one of the other big names. They want you to
use their cameras. We just want you to learn. That's
the key. I want you to learn. I want you
to do it right. So if you get a thermal
imaging camera, whatever level you get it at, you need
to do yourself to justice. And we have kept it
so affordable in order to get a certification program and
give you the information and the fact that you're not
just one and done. What it means is we're going
to continually to add modules to this program so that
you always can go back in there and learn more stuff. Okay.
So that is why when you walk into a service
call without a thermal camera is like walking blindfolded into
a room. Okay, the system is giving off early warning signs,
but you can't see them unless you're trained and equipped
for that. And that's exactly why thermal imaging has become
essential under n FPA seventy B, especially with the new
emphasis on thermal inspection in electrical preventative maintenance programs. So
whether you're new to that or you understand it, or
you're in commercial industrial which you already have a preventative
maintenance program, it is become essential now under NFPA seventy
B for you to understand it. So somebody in your
program needs to understand it. The difference in our program
is I am not going to weigh you down with
the fluff of a building envelope in water migration and temperatures,
whether you have insulating material, I could care crapless about that, folks.
I am an electrician who trains electricians. I only care
about electricians. That's why we built our program the way
we did, and we think it's the best out there,
hands down. I am biased at that, but that's what
we built. Now let's talk a little bit more here.
Let's let's go into understanding NFPA seventy B. And there's
a requirement in NFPA seventy B to test things under
loading or at the minimum of forty percent load. Now,
let me make this clear. NFPA seventy B now makes
it clear. It says to get meaningful thermal imaging data
on electrical systems, you need a minimum of forty percent
of the equipment's rated load. That's it. But I want
you to remember a few things. Even in residential which
you're outside of your scope of seventy B. Poor connections,
poor terminations. Remember that I squared or effect in poor terminations.
Over time, you could have a very little load running
through a device and still have it generating abnormal heat.
Why because of a poor connection with a high resistive
point and it's just the waiting to fail and it
may have very little load on it. That's very much
a fact. So don't get drawn down the rabbit hole
of saying, well, there's no way I could ever use
a thermal imaging camera because I can't guarantee a forty
percent loading in a residential application or even a commercial application.
You know, I can do that for motors, I can
do that for commercial equipment transformer loading. I could do
all that, but you have to think bigger. You have
to think outside of the box. Okay, Now, now, why
would NFPA seventy B do that well. Because that threshold,
small temperature rises may not show up clearly enough to
be meaningful in the real world scenario. Now, in a
residential scenario, a temperature rise over the mutual ratings or
the mutual temperature of other breakers around, it's gonna make
something stand out and gonna warrant further investigation. It's not
the smoking gun, but it's gonna warrant that investigation. And
the loading can be compounded with the fact that it
is a high resistive point where there's a problem. But
you know what, there are things that we can do
even in a house, and you can be creative as
a thermal electric a certified thermal electrician, right, so how
can we do that? So it's very easy and commercial,
it's very easy. In industrial, it's very easy for motors,
and you know, just turn them on and load them up,
let them run for ten to fifteen minutes, and then
you can start doing measurements. Even if you're doing baselines,
so that you have a baseline for annual inspections. Okay,
even if you're just doing a a qualitative versus a
quantitative you know, evaluation, you can get baseline information. But
how do we do this for let's say, dealing with
commercial or residential where we don't have consistent loading. Even
though even again low loads over a poor termination can
yield effective effective values when you're looking at it with
the thermal imags, you can now let's assume not. So
you ask yourself these questions as an electrician, this is
where you get confusing for people. They go, Okay, how
am I supposed to get forty percent load in a house?
What if the customer isn't using anything? Do I just
wait around for the loads to increase? No? No, you
create your loads and it's not brain surgery. You're getting
paid to do an evaluation by the hour. There's a
lot you can do in this, Okay, and I'm gonna
give you some tips. Okay, you create the load. Number one.
You can use hair dryers, you can use toasters, you
can use space heaters, you can use many ovens. You
can use the clothes dryer. You can turn on vacuum cleaners,
you can use microwave ovens. Okay, if it's a twenty
bathroom circuit, you can put a hair dryer in it.
You can use a space heater. You can create load
boxes where basically just boxes with various types of I
know one guy who took a box and he had
three or four of the hair dryers in it, okay,
and they blew out these vents. They put the end
near vents, and they had vents in the side so
air could move through it. But they had switches on
the top that basically was a power strip underneath, and
he could control how many hair dryers were on. And
he used that as a load box and he would
put he had a couple of them, he'd put them
on different circuits and just let them run and he
would check the circuits. He would go around, he would
do the big stuff first while he loaded those up.
You can get hair dryers very cheap, Okay, they're not expensive.
And he would load them up and he'd have four
or five of them running on the general branch circuits.
Things like that. He would turn all the lights on, okay,
and then what he would do is he'd turned the
oven on, and then he would turn a microwave on.
You know, he turn loads on and let things run
for about ten fifteen minutes, right, and then he would
start doing his evaluations in the panel. He would do
his evaluations that switches, okay. He would adjust emissivity as needed,
whether it's plastic or metal or whatever. And he was
well trained. But he created his own loading folks. Okay,
and you might say that's just too much work. It's not.
And if you're a professional, create what I call a
load box and make it look very professional, have it
designed pretty pretty nice. We're going to be working on
developing a load box that you can get from us
that it's very professional. And you know, we're going to
use the basic understanding of hair dryers. We're going to
create the box or the concept and maybe even give
you drawings on how to create your own. But it's
not brain surgery. Okay, how to do this and basically
you could do it with the hair dryers. You just
need to put it in something so the hair dryer's
just not laying on the floor. It actually holds it
up and keeps it, you know, just in place so
that it's solid and you'll plug. You'll have various ones
you plug into the different circuits. I recommend that for example,
over toasters or anything like that, or space heaters. Hair
dryers simple typically they pull twelve to fifteen amps more
than they're going to get that that for loading on
the circuit to do your testing. But again, you may
not even need it because some breakers just may have
a poor connection and it's going to elevate, it's going
to stand out amongst the others in the panel. Folks,
there's a way to do this, and we train you
on that, right, But don't think that you, oh, well,
I can't do this. There's no way I could know. No,
you can, all right, So let's just use an example.
If I have a twenty ant bathroom circuit, I want
to test it. I put on a hair drive. They
may even have a hair drive. Turn it on. It's
twelve to fifteen amps. Instantly you're at one hundred and
twenty five to one hundred and forty percent of a
usable load for diagnostic purposes. Now, if you're in a
commercial environment, you can turn the HVAC system to call
for cooling. You can energize the lighting circuits. You can
start motors under controlled conditions. You can use portable heaters
as load or load banks. You can get load banks
as well that we use. You can enable equipment that
is normally off, you can turn it on so NFPA
seventy b gave us the number. You as a professional,
have to create the condition, and some people say that's
just too much work. Well, you know what, we're here
to evaluate systems, and you're loading the system up for
that evaluation. If you're the electoral contractor that comes up
with a plan a structure on how to promote this
to your customers, how to head off possible issues in
aged homes or other homes for future, then you can
learn how that's going to be a marketing technique. And
maybe you do find something wrong in a system, or
maybe you don't, but you offer that service to your customer.
Now you may be able to go on a service
call and you're there for fifteen minutes. You get paid
by the hour. You've got more time there to say
to them, would you like us to do a thermal evaluation.
We'll look at your terminations, we'll load it, we'll put
load banks on it. We'll see to make sure everything's
running good and not overheating. There's not a problem. All
they can do is say yes or no. That's all
they can do. But you really are looking for issues,
not being a snake oil salesman, and if you also
are just doing the evaluation of a panel anyway, even
if you've got your thermal camera. You should be doing
that anyway, even if there's not evidence of loading. But
you should do it to see if you have any
high resistive terminations that could be doing the I squared
R issue, that hidden heat issue that's maybe behind a
breaker or at a poor termination. Okay, I'm just saying
there's ways to do it. N FPA seventy B gave
you the foundation, but there is ways to achieve that. Now,
let's talk about the full scope of what thermal imaging
actually reveals. So most people think thermal imaging is just
checking lugs, seeing hot breakers, finding loose connections. That that
is maybe twenty percent, if you will, of what a
thermal imaging program can do. Let's look at the other
aspects of it. And you may even be familiar with
things like it can see motors, you can see the
windings and see transformer windings. It can see all these
type of things as well. But I want to tell
you something about thermal imaging that you need to understand.
Thermal imaging can't see through walls and be accurate. Thermal
imaging is measuring the surface that you're putting the device onto,
that you're actually pointing the camera at at the appropriate distance,
understanding reflection and understanding emissivity, and positioning yourself to get
the best possible result. It's not going to do you
any good at looking trying to look through a wall. Okay,
that's only works on TV. Now when it comes to
motors and transformers, you can't see, you can't get into
the windings inside of the motor. So what you've got
to remember is that the temperature on the outside of
the motor is going to be different than what's inside
the motor. So if the temperature on the outside is
very excessive, then you know that the temperature inside is
way more than that and that's a potential problem. So
you learn the nuances of evaluating things like that. But
a lot of people use thermal especially when they're initiating
an installation of a new motor. Let it run for
a while and do some baseline testing. You're going to
do thermal imaging of the actual frame and everything to
record those values so that every month or every every
six months or whatever, you're comparing what you have to
your baseline. So you're not getting into the windings, but
you're getting the baseline from the housing. You're getting values,
and you're using that as a comparative comparative value as
an ongoing maintenance procedure. And so if you see a
sudden spike in the outside frame, which you know is
going to be not as hot as the core, but
you see this real spike in there that you're not
used to seeing, then you know something else is going
on in it. Furtheres some more evaluation. Ken, You're not superman,
but that's when we use baseline values in an ongoing
preventative maintenance program. And you should be doing that on
every data center, every every building that has a motor.
You should be recording these data. You should be keeping
it and use that as preventive maintenance. And that is
what the importance of seventy B is all about. So
going into residential diagnostics because people, you know, people don't
think about this, but thermal imaging exposes overloaded multi outlet circuits. Okay,
the loads aren't balanced properly. Okay, they could have installed
them improperly, and so the neutrals getting more current than
it should loose, backstabbed receptacles believe it or not, you
can detect that. You can see an elevated temperature spike. Yes,
overheated neutrals, high resistant connections, breaker stab heatings, bootleg neutrals,
multi wire brand circuit issues, overloaded kitchen small appliance circuits,
bundling in a panel that you may say, well, the
code says that's not an issue because it's not more
than twenty four inches, but there could be an evidence
in there of such a higher that you're thinking of.
The code is one thing, but the reality is something's
gonna happen in those conductors that are in that bundle,
and maybe, as a prudent electrician, I need to space
that out a little bit to allow some heat dissipation.
It doesn't matter the code says that's okay, but a
practical thing is, you know, this is my client and
I need to make sure that they that this heat
is dissipated because this is abnormally high. And when you say, well,
what's abnormally high, well, you know what the rating is
of the insulation, right, Typically it's going to be ninety
degrees c one hundred and ninety four degrees fahrenheit. Any
values you get much higher than that. Hello, it's just
a matter of time before you have potential breakdown. We
know the code is the code, it's a minimum standard.
We follow it, but it's not perfect. Sometimes due to
your due diligence, you can find other problems waiting that
the code might not have taken into consideration. And it
does a good job bundling, It does a good job
of more than three current care conductors and adjustment of corrections,
but there is occasions where people don't understand the code
and they may not have applied it properly. And heat
is heat. You know, it's gonna be very evident. When
you have current, you have conductors, and you have current
running through it, you're gonna build heat. It just is
what it is. Now, what about service equipment and panels? Okay,
Thermal cameras can reveal bus heating and improper bus a
bus that maybe has a connection point that's gone bad
and creates a high resistant it's not touching completely and
it's arcing creating a heat. You could have hot stabs
behind the breaker that are gone bad. Neutral bars heating
disproportionately due to possibly somebody doing something wrong in the
original installation. Hey, you could have parallel applications where they
separate conductors and are taking it through is say, a
Ferris sidewalk, and so now they didn't run them properly.
They didn't follow the rules of paralleling properly, and now
you have heating that's taking place. That can be a problem,
big problem paralleling. You could have one conductor in a
parallel application it's pulling a lot more heat than the others,
and you're thinking, what the hell's going on. It's because
it's not balanced, it's not the same length, it doesn't
meet all the paralleling rules. But nobody caught it until
one day you catch it, and you see that that
conductor is overheating, and eventually that conductor will break down
and take a system offline. Now you're thinking that it's
not going to have it in residential No, but it
very well could happen in a data center or a
large commercial building. That the uptime is the imperative importance.
And you can be that person that checks that and
every data center. I don't care. I can tell you
right now, I did not make it to Folks know
that I worked for on Krowire for over eleven years.
I ended up at on cole Wire because of a
data center issue that Daniel Jones pulled me into I
worked for NIMA. I was able to find that the
engineer that designed it designed it wrong. It was a
thermal loading issue. It was causing products to melt down.
If they had to use the thermal imaging camera and
they had to understand the nuances of it, they could
have found this answer quickly until it started breaking down.
It was an engineering design flaw. I found it and
that started my relationships with on Colewire. And finally Daniel
Jones said, you know what, I'm tired of you flying
out here to solve our issues with us. We appreciate it.
How about you come to work for us. And that's
what started this whole thing, a multimillion dollar project issue
that I made go away because I pointed out that
it was an engineering design. It wasn't a failure of
our wire. Huge Everybody should have a thermal imaging program
in place and understand how to do it. That's important.
Meteor equipment, overheating, se cable insulation, temperature breakdown main loves
with developing resistance due to poor terminations, poor oxidation, improperly done.
How many times have we heard that old story where
we look and we see that everything looks good, but
we find out that it was never torqued, so it
was loose. And when it's underload, that's when you get
that I square at our issue. And as the heat
builds up due to current flow slowly over time, that
lug starts to heat up, and everything around it starts
to melt down, until finally, when things burn up, they
finally just burn up. I love when people say, hey,
it's been that way for twenty years. Well, houses are
that way for twenty years, thirty years, forty years, until
all of a sudden they burn down. Okay, when it happens,
it happens. No sense looking in the past. When we
now have the ability to look at something and be preventative,
we can take action up front to review things. We
never could do that before. And even when thermal imaging
was in its infancy, people did not understand how to
bet the vastly utilize it, especially in our electrical trade.
Originally it was great for thermal imaging building envelopes, energy
making a system's energy efficient when it comes to buildings
envelopes and get into the energy codes and all this
kind of stuff. Yes, you're taught in all these programs,
the electrical, but that's just one piece. That's what we
focus on. And by the way, our course is usually
a third or less of what those programs are because
we're not gonna teach you those things because they're unnecessary
for what you do is for a living. That's what
we want to focus on. What else, how about transformers,
small or large transformers. You can detect overloading in the transformer,
the windings, internal winding issues, temperature variations at certain points
in the windings. It could be a problem with the winding.
It's not consistent across the winding itself, which it should
be if it's evenly connected and evenly loaded. You have
the terminal heating, you have cooling fan or airflow problems.
You'll notice that the heat seems to be segregated in
one area, so you're not getting good airflow through a
transformer if it has an internal blower. There's so many
things also, phase imbalances when it comes to the transformer
not doing things properly or going to be evident because
you know what, you're not going to hide the increased
resistance which is going to yield higher heat, and that's
going to be projected onto the conductor and determination, and
you cannot see this with a naked eye. What about motors?
What about mechanical components. Motors tell stories with heat, my friends,
whether it's bearing failure, shaft misalignment, starter contact resistance, uneven
phase loading on a motor, overcurrent or overload situations, improperly
sized thermal overloads, all these type of things. If you
understand what you're looking at, thermal imaging cameras and an
ongoing monitoring basis like taking a picture of it, putting
it in your records, taking another picture a month later,
seeing if it's consistent under normal loading conditions, helps you
create baselines and you can be proactive. I'm telling you
you should have. You should. I cannot. I cannot get
into this industry today if I did not think that
I needed to understand thermal imaging and add it to
my portfolio. It just is today. It does. It's not
just residential, commercial, industrial, it's everything. It's just another tool
for your toolbox. If you use it once a month,
you use it two times a year, it may just
save your button, save your customer's butt. I'm just saying now,
what about lighting systems? Led drivers in ballasts fail thermally
long before they fail. Visually. It may look fine. How
many of you seen ballasts and looked at lumin airs
and think that looks great, that looks fine, But all
the while it's overheated. It's going to be eminent failure
and you can be proactive with it. What about rooftop units, folks,
the contactors, the capacitors, disconnects, compressor windings, fan motors, control boards,
looking for hotspots, looking for things that are abnormal. Thermal
imaging cameras can see things that you cannot. But if
you don't know how to interpret the value, then what
happens is you cry wolf. You say, oh, you got
to shut this down when that might be normal operating
temperature based on the load and effect. You need to
understand the difference. We don't want you crying wolf, but
we definitely want you to be able to see what
the problem may be. Okay, fuses, I can tell by
looking at something when I'm looking at it and I'm saying, well,
I can tell under a load condition whether a fuse
is blown or not, or the fuses having potential problems
while it's still running. It's not fully blown through yet.
There's things that you can determine with a thermal imaging
camera that can just save you time and be very
proactive and keep the uptime up. What about commercial electrical
rooms routinely monthly imaging can save you. I'm telling you.
It gives you load trend analysis, harmonic heating detection, understanding
how the heating is going to be transmitted based on
different load conditions, partial failures before they escalate. You can
find little things that you can keep fixing in order
to maintain the optimal performance of your system' soh you
can identify things for ongoing preventative maintenance like seasonal load.
Changes you know what to expect in the winter time
than what you is in the. Summertime those type of.
Things no other tool gives you this kind of insight
if you understand how to use. It, okay now why
electricians should use a thermal imaging camera on every single service? Call,
Okay now here's the real business side of, it. Folks
look nim reason number one instinct. Diagnostics you can find
issues in seconds that would take hours to locate with
meter and. Testing that that doesn't replace. Metering you're going
to have To in many, cases we teach you to
also use an amprobe in order to get a good
full picture of what's going. On but it puts you
where you need to be and it narrows it down for.
You instant. Diagnostics number two faster call. RESOLUTION a scan
tells you exactly where to focus your time and your
efforts rather than just doing a while ask. Guests it
helps you narrow down where the problem may. Be it's
not going to replace your. Skills it's just a tool
in your. Toolbox number three more billable. Work if you
find these issues the customer, has they didn't have any
idea they had, it you can quantify it because you
can actually show them this on the thermal. Camera you
learn how to explain it to your. Customer we even
give a module in our program unlike anybody, else nobody does.
This we give you a module in our program on
how to sell and convey the information to the. Customer
because we're not here to sell snake. Oil we're here
to sell real results that are quantifiable by. IMAGERY i
can point out and it's easy for people to. See
we can look at it at different color, palettes different color,
spectrums and explain this is what's going. On we need
to fix this problem because it could be a problem
down the, road and if they don't do, it you know,
what and it does, fail they have nobody to blame but. Themselves,
now what's another? Reason higher a professional? Perception customers instantly
see you as the expert because you're using a tool
that the other guy isn't. Using so you hear me
talk about this all the time in. Marketing while people
get THE cmecp Program Certified Master electrical Co Professional program,
certification is it? Required absolutely? Not should every master electrician
think about? It, yes if you understand, marketing if you
understand how to put yourself above your competition and how
to stand out in the, crowd how to use it
when you're doing marketing, leverage how to letter your, vehicle
how to promote it on your business, cards how to
talk About i've gone over and above what the normal
master electrician has to do to get this. Certification if
you know how to do, that people say all the,
time what is it going to get? Me is that
all you want is what it's going to give. You,
okay that's going to give you is an edge over your. Competition,
well the same thing here for thermal. Imaging you understand.
It and, again the vast majority of electrical contractors out
there don't understand the proper way to use thermal, imaging
how to incorporate it into their. Business and it's a sales,
piece a marketing, piece diagnostic, piece advance technology piece that
your customer may have never. Seen and it gives you talking. Points,
right all win, wins folks win. Win what's another? Reason
how about liability. Protection here's your thermal scan before and
after that documentation keeps you. Safe so preventative. Maintenance anytime
you're installing a new piece of, equipment get it, loaded install,
it run it for fifteen or twenty, minutes do a
through image of, it take a regular picture in a
thermal imaging. Picture keep that for the, records use that
as your. Baseline, also in a, dwelling you go do
a service. Call how many times have, you as an
electrician gone and done something that somebody calls you and, says,
hey something stopped working after you, left or this melted
down or something burn up after you. Left, well, Dude
i'm gonna do a thermal scan of every. Panel i'm
going to have a thermal, scan And i'm going to
put that And i'm want to include that with a,
report And i'm going to, say, HEY i did a
complimentary thermal. Scan everything was, good so that if something
happens AFTER i leave in that, panel they can't come
and say to, me, oh it's because you didn't see
this breaker was bad or this one had a poor.
Connection i'm gonna do the BEST i can to try
to have that due, diligence so if you end up in,
court you can, say, look your, Honor i'm not a,
Magician i'm an, electrician but you know WHAT i did.
DO i went that extra effort and used a thermal
imaging camera to try to capture some baselines for the
customer as a. Courtesy, again it's a snapshot in. TIME
i did the BEST i could with. It and you know,
what you call me as an, Expert i'm going to
be able to support you in that and, say you know,
what your, honor as an, expert here they did about
all they could do in this. Situation so, again it's
a little extra liability protection because every panel you, touch
everything you stick your hands, on if it fails right after,
that whether it's a day after or two months. After
guess what the customer always, says, well the last one
that did anything was the last electrician it was. Here
he must have screwed something. Up it's very. Affordable it
protects you and as long as you get into that,
mentality and maybe you don't, care that's mine. Too but
today people are getting very litigious the way they. Are
and trust, me a customer that acts like your, friend
something burns up or something burns down and they tell
the investigators that you recently had some electrical work or
somebody came. In guess what you are now. Suspect doesn't
mean you did, it but you're now. Suspect, Okay so
any thing THAT i can put in my pocket to
help me as a licensed professional with a certificational thermal
imaging in my back, pocket it's gonna, say, look it
was fine WHEN i was. Here it's NOTHING i did
to cause. Anything all this stuff was. Fine all of
that type of stuff helps protect you just a little bit.
More Reason number six maintenance contract. Opportunities commercial customers love
thermal trend. Data whether you're adding this to your normal,
profile whether you know whether you want to get into
some data centers and also them a third. Party go
to them and, say, LOOK i know you've got property, mads,
guys but we can offer you a third party thermal
imaging and do it on a monthly basis to make
sure you increase the. Uptime we're gonna look for any
abnormalities and we're gonna keep this baseline data and we're
gonna have it and we're gonna compare it every. Month
we can see any trend because heat. Rises, Okay so
there's a lot of opportunities for. Maintenance commercial. Applications, uh
big buildings like The walmarts and, whatever have rooftop, units
anything that you can develop a maintenance program that's a
baseline that's gonna be over and above what their normal
maintenance folks. Do they don't know how to do this. Stuff.
Folks you can get creative and create programs and add these. Programs,
again people, say, well ain't nobody gonna. Come, look they
are not gonna come unless you build. It they're. Not
you have to. Build you have to work at, Something,
Scott i'm not Gonna we're not giving it to you
on a silver. Platter you gotta work a little. Bit
reason number seven safety reliability And Code. Compliance N fpa
SEVENTY b is pushing the entire industry towards preventative thermal,
diagnostics which you can put in your pocket when you
explain that to your customer that this is a changing,
world that we now have specific guidelines that we should
follow AND i can offer you that and keep it, safe,
reliable and. Compliant, now let's talk about how These Certified
Thermal electrician program can elevate your. Skills this is our program.
Specifically so most thermography courses cover camera, focusing building, ENVELOPE hvac,
focused or generic infrared tech type. Training but you know,
what electricians aren't scanning. Roofs they're not scanning duct. Systems
you're scanning electrical systems under load. Condition you need training
IN nfpa seventy we do that At Electrical Code. Academy
we teach you THE. Neec you need training and what's
necessary ON nfpa SEVENTY. B you need to understand one
ten dot FOURTEEN ct temperature. Limitations we cover. That we
explain that you need to understand installation temperature, ratings emissivity
for electrical. Metals you need to understand proper camera distance and.
Angle or in. Reflection you need to understand load creation.
Methods you need to understand temperature, interpretation diagnostic, logics proper
documentation and. Reporting you need to learn when to not
cry wolf and when you need to advise your customer
to monitor a situation and offer a fall up. Service
Follow up services are, Huge trust. Me it's much cheaper
to have you follow up than it is for them
to have to replace it when it burns. Down trust.
Me and you're, saying, well what has, Changed, paul over the,
years we never did this type of. Stuff the loading has, changed,
folks system has, changed demand has. Changed it doesn't take
you long to look around and see that the people
are consuming current like they're going. Mad with the advent
of evs and systems weren't designed for the is what
people are adding them in the home all the, time
and they're not always doing load calculations when they're. Dwelling
they're adding additional loads that if you have poor terminals
at the main or poor connections at the, meter can
create potential problems that may not have been there before
they added on these additional, loads which again translates into.
Heat there's so many factors that change it. Today that's
why we created THE cte, program the world's first and
only thermography program built exclusively around. Electricians it's not, generic
it's not watered. Down it's an electrical thermal imaging done,
right the right. Way proper, code proper, science proper, procedures proper,
safety real world. Examples that's what THE cte program is all.
About so, Look i'm going to be straight with. You
it's not a Selling we sell. Courses we can give
you the best deal for the best professional grade thermal
imaging cameras that you don't have to spend thousands of dollars.
On we can help you with that if you don't
already have. One but if you're not using a thermal imaging,
yet you're behind the, times not because others are doing,
it but because electrical systems require. It thermal imaging is
a diagnostic, tool a preventative maintenance, tool a liability, shield
a customer education, tool a revenue generating, tool a safety,
tool and to be honest with, you it's a professional
differentiator between you and your. Competition if you want to
master this and understand how to interpret, it how to
look at and see trends that are coming in the.
System you want to be elite and stand out above your,
competition or at least push your competition to be on
par with, you then you need to look at OUR
cte Program Certified Thermal. Electrician it's only available From Electric Code.
Academy you can go To thermalimaging dot. Com our courses
are hosted BY, eca which is our corporate. Office we've
been around for a long, time. Folks i've been teaching
this stuff for nearly forty. YEARS i serve on code
Making panel. FIVE i serve on code Making panel. Seventeen you're, saying,
okay five is grinding and. BONDING i understand those type of.
Things but where do you get your expertise when it
comes to conductors in opacity and temperatureize. Folks i've been
the director of technical services for the world's largest wiring
cable manufacturer for over a, decade working very closely FOR
r AND. D i have nine patents to my name
in the wiring cable. INDUSTRY i understand, TERMINATIONS i understand.
HEATING i understand the thermal impacts of doing those things.
Improperly this is all that led me to create this,
program and this is why you don't get this anywhere,
else only in our. Program all. Right, AGAIN i don't
want to sound like a sales pitch Because i'm passionate about,
it but you need. It if you want more information
on adding our, services adding our certification to your your
your options as a professional, electrician do me a. Favor
go To Thermal. Imaging excuse, Me thermal electrician dot. Com
Thermal electrician dot. Com go, there send in for some.
Information call me if you want my numbers five, four zero,
six zero, seven zero one one. Six, uh you can
send a message through our. System just do me a.
Favor think about adding it to your toolbox because you're
going to see amazing things and you're gonna prevent a
lot of things that can be. Prevented all, Right, okay,
folks that's ALL i got for. You hopefully you got
something out of. That until next, time stay, Safe god
bless and we'll catch you on an upcoming episode Of
mastering THE Nec till next, time.
Speaker 1: Peace thanks for tuning into another electrifying episode of The
master THE ndp. Podcast we hope you're feeling more powered
up and ready to tackle the electrical world with the
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trade knowledge is, power and we're here to make sure
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Trade from all of us here At Electrical Code, academy
thank you for all your, support and we will see
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Speaker 2: Episode