West Linton & District - Free Infra-Red Heat Surveys
An infrared Heat Survey can show you where your house is losing heat - enabling you to take action to reduce heat loss. This could save you money, help you stay warmer and help reduce CO2 emissions.
What is a Heat Survey?
Our Community Heat Team volunteers use a handheld thermal camera that can ‘see’ the heat or infrared radiation given off by objects to take thermal images of the inside of your property
These thermal images can help you locate many sources of heat loss, such as draughts, areas of missing insulation, damp patches, cold bridging from the outside and so on.
We do not aim to replace professional building surveyors or provide technical advice - but to help make householders aware of how and where their homes might be losing heat and who to speak to about it.
Go to our Heat Surveys page for more information.
Book a Heat Survey appointment now via our online booking calendar.
Who are the Community Heat Team?
We are a group of local volunteers who have undertaken a comprehensive training process to enable us to provide a free, basic thermographic diagnostic service for local households.
The Heat Team was set up in 2022, by the Community Thermal Action Project run by the Sustainable West Linton & District charity and was initially funded by the National Lottery Community Fund. The funding provided a high-quality handheld thermal camera and supporting diagnostic tools, and paid for training for the Heat Team.
To be able to build on the success of the Thermal Action Project, in 2023 we were awarded funding from the Scottish Borders Local Action Group, who work in partnership with Scottish Borders Council.
To create some additional interest for our thermal project a local drone operator used their infrared thermal camera drone to record some birds-eye views of the village for us.
How does it work?
-
![Map of Community Heat Teams in Scotland]()
1. Find your local Community Heat Team
On the map or the drop down, find your local heat team. If there is no local heat team, perhaps you’d be interested in starting one ?!
-
![]()
2. Choose a date and time
Choose a suitable date and time online or email via the form to arrange. The visit takes about 1 hour in total, and needs to be on a cold, dry, calm evening and after dark. This is because a thermal camera requires a significant temperature difference between the inside and the outside to be able to ‘see’ the heat loss.
-
![]()
3. Heat Survey Appointment
When your Heat Team volunteer arrives, they will take external and internal measurements of temperature and humidity. They will then use the heat camera to take thermal images of the inside of your house. It is totally up to you which rooms you want them to look at. If you would like to, you will be very welcome to try using the thermal camera yourself.
-
![]()
4. The Heat Survey Report
After the survey your Heat Team volunteer will send you a pdf report containing the thermographic images from the survey and any potential areas of abnormal heat loss identified. Our Heat Team volunteers can provide basic energy efficiency advice, but will offer you a referral to Home Energy Scotland for any further technical investigations or funding questions.
-
![Save money, Reduce Co2, stay warm and healthy]()
5. Take action to reduce heat loss
There may be some ‘quick win’ actions identified that you can carry out yourself, such as basic draughtproofing. Other potential action might require more specialist advice. We can offer you a referral to Home Energy Scotland for any further technical investigations or funding questions. Take a look at our Take Action page for signposting of other options too.
Looking Ahead
We really want to be able to continue to offer a free Heat Survey service to householders in West Linton & District, for next winter and beyond.
To do this, we need to raise funds to cover the basic operating costs of the service, such as training, insurance and web site maintenance. If you would like to donate to support this service please go to our donation page and donate.