One of the worst feelings we experience as thermographers is not being able to “find” problems. For example, you’ve billed the customer for the cost of the inspection plus travel and you’ve still not found any problems, faults, or anomalies. This may leave the customer thinking that they didn’t receive the return on investment they expected. Let’s look at the circumstances that could lead us to telling a customer that no problem was found during an inspection.

We’ll look at a few different types of business units that you may be working with or for and then determine what course of action should be taken when presenting your findings to the client or employer.

Light commercial

• These could be locations such as strip mall shops, department stores, and smaller restaurants. These are places that would not normally have large 480VAC switch boards or MCC’s (Motor Control Centers). Most of the electrical power used at the location would be from 120/208/240 VAC panel boards (with 277VAC lighting possible). Most often the heaviest load will be the lighting and environmental systems.

Large commercial

• These could be locations such as the strip mall (vs. the shops), large department stores, restaurants (mostly 480VAC equipment), light manufacturing, office buildings, and other types not categorized under industrial.

Industrial

• The difference between light industrial and heavy industrial is kind of fuzzy, some use the main electrical service size to define the difference. Some will look at the overall size of the building; I tend to look at more of the process that the building is using and make a judgment from there. For example: A trailer manufacturer could be either light or heavy industrial. If there is an automated process, chances are that the manufacturer would be considered “heavy industrial”. On the other hand, a mainly “hand built” process would be considered “light industrial”. The automated systems require more power and control systems and possibly MCC’s to function, even though the two different processes may have the same “footprint” in terms of overall area used.

All of these locations would benefit from a list of inspected equipment or route list noting operational condition of the equipment (running, not running, locked out, off, or obsolete) at the time of the inspection.

The report for all of the units or locations should include the conditions at the time of the inspection. In the case of the commercial units the following conditions should be considered:

• Is the entire lighting load active?
• Is the building occupied as it would be on a normal workday? (this affects the loading on the environmental systems)
• Is the building or shop under normal operations or is the inspection being conducted in the “off hours.”
• A note of the criteria for fault definition needs to be included (at which point is a fault to be reported)

For industrial locations all of the above should be taken into consideration in addition to items that are part of a redundant or backup system. These items should be identified as such:

• Subsystems or processes that are dependent on other systems or processes should be identified along with which system or processes to which they are dependent

The following is a format that works for most reports:

Customer contact
Address

Site Name:
Date of Inspection:
Thermographer:

1. # of pieces of equipment that were tested
Count: 17 (from the list generated during the inspection)

2. # of pieces of equipment that were not tested
Count: 0

3. Total # of Anomalies found
Count: 0

4. # of acute and chronic problems documented
Count: 0 (all problems should be documented)

5. # of problems repaired at discovery and closed
Count: 0 (if any of the problems were corrected during the inspection)

Inspection conditions and or notes:

• The conditions mentioned above would go here

There were no faults noted during this inspection, in accordance to the criteria agreed upon as defined in the scope of work.
(or you can put the criteria definition here)

Included on the following pages is a list of the inspected equipment with the operational condition of the equipment at the time of the inspection noted.
(you could also insert a list of terms with definitions used in the report before the equipment list)

Note: Due to the low emissive value of some electrical components and the connection materials, the temperatures indicated maybe lower than the actual values, and the actual delta temperature difference between the points maybe larger than indicated.

There are some abbreviations used in the report and the equipment that are listed below:

• NR: Not Running
• LO: Locked Out
• OFF: Equipment disconnect in the “off” position but not locked out
• Fault: There has been a problem noted
• NIU: Equipment is Not In Use or obsolete
• “Blank”: No problems noted, equipment in normal condition

In the Infrared Report, critically definitions are:

• Critical: Repairs recommended as soon as parts are available NOT dependent on operational availability. However, in certain situations, if imminent failure is likely, it may be appropriate to shut down immediately. 
• High: Repairs recommended as soon as parts are available dependent on operational availability
• Low: Condition of fault can be monitored until repairs are required or can be repaired as time, resources, and operations permit

The above is just one option. You will need to tailor it to your needs, but for the most part this is sufficient information for the customer.  All of the suggestions above have been used to defend “not finding anything” during an inspection and to give the customer a sense of value, also providing an opportunity to “reset” the criteria for what a fault is.

Reporting “Nothing Found” can be somewhat awkward and uncomfortable as we want the client to feel that they got what they paid for. We can accomplish that by being thorough and fulfilling the statement of work and we must impart this thoroughness to the client. If repeated inspections continue to show “Nothing Found” we may want to suggest the client reduce the frequency of inspections or possibly expand the program to cover additional assets. If handled correctly, “Nothing Found” should leave the client with a confident feeling that their equipment has been rigorously inspected and is in good working order.