The challenge of assuring dependable power throughout your home should be addressed through consistent maintenance of equipment and taking immediate action to rectify any problems found. One great preventative measure is performing an infrared panel scan to identify any issues up-front.

Causes of Component and Equipment Failure

Heat and increased resistance are the leading factors in most components’ failure. Equipment failure is caused by a myriad of situations, including but not limited to:

• use failure
• overloaded or imbalanced circuits
• damaged switches
• loose screws and connections
• material defects
• defective breakers

By completing an infrared panel scan as a preventative measure, you could identify the issues early on and possibly save on critical and expensive future work.

Electrical panels are the genesis of electrical supply throughout a home or business and as such, serious caution should be taken to ensure they are in working order. Infrared is a proven tool, successful in identifying electrical problems before they fail, allowing the owner to take the necessary steps to prevent potentially dangerous electrical issues. To find the issues, infrared inspections locate the panel’s hot spots that appear due to connection and component defects.

Infrared Thermography to Locate Panel Hot Spots

To locate areas with excess heat within an electrical panel, infrared thermography is used. This extra heat is usually caused by increased resistance and can eventually overload the entire panel. Heating within the electrical panel is a sign of failure and without correcting these problems, components see damage and fail, and safety hazards occur.

The top diagnostic tool for locating hot spots before degeneration goes too far, infrared scanning is the way to go. Many insurance companies request an electrical infrared inspection before they process any claims in order to prevent problems. Infrared thermography scans are non-evasive, inexpensive, safe and proactive ways to avoid outages before they happen.

When to Scan for Excessive Heat

Whenever electrical panel, remote panel or power distribution unit access is needed, an infrared scan should be conducted on the branch circuits and breakers. Scanning takes a few seconds and taking this time now can save you time in the future.

In a busy office with heavy loads on the electrical output, it is common to have new equipment like servers or computers added without making sure that the system can handle the increasing load (for example, the circuit may increase the load on a 20 amp circuit from 14 to 20 amps). However, always remember, a circuit’s electrical capacity that can support the equipment is not always equal to the number of outlets on the power strip. Prior to causing an electrical outage from your entire critical infrastructure, run an infrared thermographic scan to avoid likely failure.

Allstar Electrical uses the very latest infrared technology to identify electrical problems in your panel. Our professional electricians scan the service panel for warning signs and make the necessary repairs or adjustments before trouble sets in. We scan equipment, including equipment with electric motors, and spot the potential for failure. Trust our master electricians to ensure your Denver area home, business or office is safe and secure with an electrical audit and inspection to guarantee your systems are proper and up-to-date. Contact us at (303) 399-7420