Thermal Imaging in Exactimate

[Noidios]

I have a new thermal camera that I plan to use on most water losses, whether I can bill for it or not. This is just for peace of mind for me and the customer. My question is, how do you know when you can bill for it, and how do "bid items" in exactimate work?

 

[Mark Saiger]

If you have a water loss, it is just considered a tool for part of the daily monitoring and water detection.

If you are doing home inspections or just water detection, it is considered a bid item in Xactimate.

I get at least $200 and hour for my time for just doing water detection alone.

Xactimate pays around $30 per hour for daily monitoring or $50 for after hours such as weekend and holiday monitoring.

I have had some adjusters tell me there is no such thing as after hours because we should be a 24 hour service (even though I have never advertised being 24 hour)

I don't work for those insurance companies or adjusters anymore and tell the home owner they might have a bit more discussion to do with their adjuster, insurance company and consider contacting their agent.

I also have a great public adjuster I have tapped into in the past 3 years. She's a blast actually....

Mark Saiger

 

[Chris A]

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I also have a great public adjuster I have tapped into in the past 3 years. She's a blast actually....
Mark Saiger

Remember your wife reads the forums too!

 

[Mark Saiger]

Remember your wife reads the forums too!

Lol...thankfully she doesn't

Mark

 

[Desk Jockey]

We only charge for it when we are doing moisture inspections. $150.00 with a diagram, images and a report. Most people balk at that, we end up doing very few but of those we do we have really helped direct people to the source of their problem.

For water losses it helps us sell the job it also allows us to be more productive by identifying areas of concern without having to physically inspect with a non destructive meter.

I will caution you, while its a fantastic tool and I would not want to be without it, it can be wrong at times. Because it shows temperature differential, you can get false positives and false negatives. Always confirm with both your non destructive and intrusive meter to confirm what the camera is showing you.

 

[Noidios]

Thanks for the help guys. I guess it's a good thing that I bought it for peace of mind rather than trying to make an extra buck on it.

While I have you attention, how do you charge for mold encapsulation (for the stuff that microban doesn't touch)? I'm going to be using Unsmoke Unsoot #2 encapsulant for the first time. The best I can figure out is to charge the hourly for the mold tech (WTRLABH) and use MISC for the product itself.[h=2][/h]

 

[Desk Jockey]

Russ we remove it, we've never encapsulated it. We have used Serum 1000 to boil out the mold and then HEPA vacuumed when dry.

If it were me I'd charge buy the sq/ft, it won't appear as shocking as hourly would even though its the same amount.

 

[tmdry]

My Flir i7 comes w/ me on every single inspection, closes 90% of the jobs...but we also don't charge for it....I would not live w/out it.