Air Conditioning Defect Found During Home Inspection

The Air Conditioner was operating, seemed to be cooling OK…  temperatures coming out of the ducts were within range. Usually, during a Home Inspection, that’s about as much as you’re going to find. Use the thermostat, if the Heat and AC work, that’s it! After turning on my thermal imaging camera… I had an advantage!

Well, during this Home Inspection in Palmdale, things were not as they would “appear”, and quite frankly, without Infrared Imaging… I would have likely missed this defect!

The unit was operating, but the temperatures at the condenser were not what I’m used to seeing and caught my attention. This motivated to take a deeper look inside the unit and follow around in the coils, doing so, I spotted what is likely a leak inside the condenser. Was the unit refilled with refrigerant recently? Would it have not cooled shortly after moving in? Probably and my customer knows NOW versus later.

Updated 10-2013

Over the last year or so, I’ve found countless problems for buyer’s of real estate. These types of defects include

• Plumbing and other moisture leaks – problems that would have gone unnoticed, and I’ve saved my customer’s from peril or unforeseen financial loss.
• Electrical Defects – Electrical defects found during home or commercial inspections that can be caught before “visible degrade” has occurred to components, resulting in increased downtime and increase service costs.
• Missing Insulation and lack of efficiency – If hired for a complete thermal imaging of a building (beyond what is included in a regular real estate inspection) we can scan a building for air leaks, missing insulation, heat loss and other factors that can add up to wasted money.

What I’ve determined is this, I can’t imagine performing an inspection without having a thermal imaging camera, period. If you are hiring a real estate inspector, you should consider having this important technology.

Until the next time, best wishes!