Heat Is The Warning
Electricity makes heat wherever it meets resistance. A terminal that has worked loose, a cable a size under what it is carrying, a breaker that has been cycled a thousand times — each one turns a little more energy into heat than it should. That rise is usually invisible and silent, and it builds for months.
A thermal imaging camera makes it visible. Surveyed under normal load, a warm connection stands out against the identical connections either side of it, which is what allows a problem to be picked up and booked in as ordinary work instead of becoming an outage.
What A Survey Covers
- Main switchboards and distribution boards
- Sub-boards, isolators and changeover switches
- Circuit breakers, links and busbar connections
- Motor starters, contactors and variable speed drives
- Motors, pumps and fan assemblies on the electrical side
- Supply and sub-mains terminations
- Solar inverters, isolators and array combiner boxes
- Three-phase load balance across the phases
How We Do It
Under load, not shut down. A cold board tells you nothing. The survey is carried out with the equipment running as it normally does, which in most cases means no interruption to you at all.
Compared, not guessed. A temperature on its own means little — ambient in Alice Springs does most of the work in summer. Findings are assessed against the surrounding phases and identical components under similar load, so what gets reported is a genuine difference rather than a hot day.
Written up the same way every time. You get a report with the thermal image, the matching visual image, where it is, what was observed, and how urgent we consider it. Repeated annually it becomes a record of how your installation is actually ageing.
What Thermography Can And Cannot Tell You
Worth being straight about, because it is the difference between a survey that is useful and one that is oversold.
What it does well. It reveals heat differences at accessible, energised components at the time of the survey, and it does so without contact, without isolation, and without dismantling anything. For loose terminations, overloaded circuits and unbalanced phases it is very good indeed.
Where it stops. A thermal survey is a picture of your equipment at one moment, carrying whatever load it happened to be carrying. It cannot see inside a sealed enclosure it cannot be opened onto, it cannot see a fault that is not generating heat, and it cannot predict a component that fails suddenly without warning. A circuit that is lightly loaded on the day may not show a fault that appears under summer load.
So a survey informs maintenance decisions. It does not predict the future condition of an installation, and we do not present it as though it does. Where something needs isolation, testing or dismantling to be confirmed, the report says so rather than implying the image settled it.
Why It Matters More Here
Alice Springs runs to 45°C. Every switchboard in town spends summer working in an ambient that would be considered a fault condition in most of the country, and a connection already running warm has far less margin left before it becomes a problem.
Distance compounds it. On a remote site a failure is not a call-out, it is a trip — travel, accommodation and a day gone, on top of whatever the outage cost. Finding it during a planned survey costs a fraction of that.
Frequently Asked Questions
What qualification does the person doing the survey hold?
Dave Sawtell holds Infraspection Institute Certified Infrared Thermographer Level 1, No. 16834, and a licensed A-grade electrician. Both matter: the certification covers reading the image correctly, and the licence covers working safely on live equipment and knowing what the finding actually means electrically.
Do you have to turn the power off?
No — the opposite. The survey is done under normal load, because a de-energised board is at ambient and shows nothing. Most surveys cause no interruption at all.
What do I actually receive?
A written report: the thermal image, the matching visual image, the location, what was observed, and how urgent we consider each item. Findings needing isolation or further testing to confirm are identified as such rather than presented as settled.
How often is it worth doing?
Annually suits most commercial installations, and it is commonly scheduled ahead of summer so anything found can be repaired before the hottest load. Sites with heavy motor loads or a history of nuisance tripping sometimes justify more often.
Will it find every fault?
No, and anyone who tells you otherwise is overselling it. Thermography reveals faults that are generating heat at accessible components at the time of the survey. A fault that is not producing heat, or one inside an enclosure that cannot be safely opened, will not appear. It is a strong maintenance tool, not a certificate of health.
Can you survey a remote site?
Yes. We work across Central Australia, and remote sites are often where the value is highest — the cost of an unplanned failure out there is far greater than in town. Travel is quoted up front.
General information only. These answers are a starting point, not a substitute for a licensed electrician. If you're ever unsure, smell burning, see sparks, or a switch won't reset — stop and call us.
Related Services
Electrical Maintenance
Scheduled inspections and thermal imaging — find the fault before it fails.
Switchboard Upgrades
Old fuses, missing safety switches and boards that trip. Certificate of Compliance supplied.
Industrial & Remote Site Electrician
O&M, predictive maintenance and thermal inspections for industrial plant and remote sites.
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