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Bought a $200 thermal camera, found a hot neutral in 10 minutes
Had a mystery breaker tripping in an old house in Portland. Spent two hours chasing it with a clamp meter before I tried my new Seek thermal camera. Found the bad splice right behind a wall, and it paid for itself on that one call. Anyone else use thermal imaging for residential work?
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wendy62827d ago
Crazy how tools like that just make you see stuff you never noticed before. It's like once you start looking at the world with a thermal camera, you realize how much heat is hiding everywhere. Same thing happened to me with a simple outlet tester, once I knew what to look for, I started finding issues in every old house I walked into. It's funny how a single good tool can change how you think about a whole trade.
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noahmartin26d ago
...and honestly I don't see what the big deal is. I've been doing electrical work for 15 years and never needed a $200 camera to find a bad splice. A good multimeter and some patience will get you there every time. Thermal cameras are cool for showing off on social media but they're not some magic bullet. Half the time people use them they end up chasing shadows or getting false readings from sunlight hitting walls. It just seems like another gadget that makes you spend money instead of actually getting better at troubleshooting the old fashioned way.
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