heat signature question

[George]

well i just run 1k watter in a closet, which is almost exactly in the middle of my apartment, not necessarily near any outter walls. yea its air condidtioned, but i have to cut back a little cause the electricity bill shot up huge this month. just hoping they wont notice it, and if they do being in 100-110F temps, has an excuse of "i tried running multiple a/c's cause the kids kept complaining, until i saw the bill"

 

[OGDread]

dont worry about it, its unconstitutional for them to use flir without a warrant..... .

Oh golly good! Glad to see there is laws in the US protecting citizens! For all I know "unconstitutional" seems a minor issue for Mr. Bush. Shield and cool dude.. Never amazes me that criminals (hey, im one, not to diss you) seek protection in the law, I mean, fair enough.. but dont frigging count on it eh?

 

[Guest]

Here's a picture:

Thanks for posting the picture. If one's insulatations isn't up to par. FLIR will show your light burning alot easier, but i think everyone is forgetting one thing. You are thinking and looking at a side view. If FLIR's is going to be used. It's going to be mostly on a helicopter looking downwards at houses as it fly's over. Not black and white units just driving through neighborhoods scanning every house they can. These hand held units are alot and most department's won't spend the funding on them right away. The only department that i know for a fact in most areas. That are stocking these units. Is the city fire departments for scanning for live persons in a building. There's alot of great information here. Moose eater is on top of the case for use. I'll be posting more then enough info on FLIR once i'm back in the game with plenty of pictures of before and after shoots. Testing different method of shielding and other goodies. Three things to remember about FLIR

Good Insulatation
Good Venting
and a shielding Product

there are a few shielding products out there and i'll make sure to go over them after testing them.

Love all the info being shared.
Take care all,
BG

 

[Guest]

>>>well i just run 1k watter in a closet, which is almost exactly in the middle of my apartment<<<

Then FLIR likely isn't much of an issue for you at all, considering that you're on the ground floor of a three story bldg., and in the middle, at that.

**Gratuitous side note: (On the other hand, if the ceiling above you is poorly insulated, don't be too shocked if your neighbor notices that his/her tootsies are nice and comfy warm over your area, moreso than the rest of his/her house. ;^>) They may move their favorite recliner to that room for reading the morning paper..)

Your weak links are then the utility bill(s), odor, loose lips, and informants.

The significance of utility bills varies from area to area. Last year, or so, in Calif. you might recall the woman whose home was raided based on utility bills. No informants, odor, or loose lips; not even a grow as far as anyone knows. She had like five or six kids, and her washer and dryer were running non-stop.

The P.D. in that case ended up with some egg on their faces, and I don't know if they were required to make any necessary repairs to her home, though they should've been.

I wish that more Judges and magistrates would realize that 1.) There's lots of reasons folks might have a warm room in a house, and 2.) There's even -more- reasons that a person might have an erratic utility bill.

But if LEO hooks up loose lips of any sort with either of those previous two features, it can easily spell problems.

Hey GoldDustWomen!

Hope that all's well.

Yes, because of much of FLIR being airborne, it will usually, depending on how much cleared area is around a home, give an angled downward side view; it's looking ahead, coming at its target, so a 30-50+ degree angle of view in relationship to the ground is quite common, simultaneosly giving a side-view and roof view. If there's more brush or trees closely surrounding a structure, then they might only see a roof clearly due to obstruction..

But persons who live in an area prone to wild fires should have a decent fire break around their home of at least 30 ft, and preferrably 60 ft.

Be safe.

moose eater

 

[vonforne]

anyone using this Poly-shield for protection?150 bucks for a 100 ft roll of ADF black/white poly doesnt sound bad if it works.Hey GDW I remember talking to you awhile back about this subject and the thread you are making.....cant wait for your results.

Where can I find the poly-shield? How about 2 1000Ks air cooled with a/c. Under an enclosed stilt home. Grow connected to outer wall. Outer wall is block and stucco (8 inches or so) Room temp around 85 degrees constant. Exaust is made to look like dryer vent, which most people in my area have under their homes if they live in a stilt home. Electric bill 230.00 less than my daughters mothers house. No odor due to the canna filter. Should I worry. Also they have busted 32 large grows ( entire house set-ups ) less than 30 miles away.

 

[Guest]

I can't speak to poly-shield, other than to say that anything effective would have to keep enough heat away from an exterior wall to cause that wall to read similarly to your other exterior walls when measuring heat on the outside surface..

If at all possible, don't have an op in direct contact with an exterior wall above ground without good insulation. It's much better to extend your ducting to your vent than to have direct contact with an exterior wall, providing that your ducting doesn't create too much impedance/pressure on your rate of air flow due to too many angles...

Block isn't a very good insulation; it conducts/tranfers both heat and cold pretty well, as does plaster/stucco, though I believe that plaster transmits heat and cold to a slightly lesser degree than block, on an inch-for-inch comparison.

Were it me, since your home is already built, and you likely don't want to get into adding insulation to the exterior side of your block that would then require some sort of covering, such as painted metal, etc., I would look at sub-walling in the area that you're describing. Only enough to make it similar in temp to the outside surfaces of other exterior walls.

A tight and insulated option would be to build an interior wall from 2"x4"against the interior of your existing bloick wall(s), and insulate with R-13 fiberglass, then sheeting horizontally with 4'x8' 1-1/2" foil-back foam completely across the studs, top to bottom (typically rated anywhere from R-10 to R-12.5) using cap nails through the foam sheeting and into the vertical studs of your sub-wall, and taping over the seams between the foam with vapor barrier tape.

Then vapor barrier over the foil back foam, adhering the vapor barrier to the ceiling, floor, and intersections with other interior walls, (assuming that there are any), either with tremco or some other vapor barrier sealant (tremco -is- messy; often referred to as 'black death').

Then pilot drill 2"x4" firring to run horizontally, perpendicular to your studs, matching your centers on your vertical studs with your spacing on your pilot drill holes, with two holes per intersection, and using a 6" sheet rock (more flexible than zinc) type of screw to hold up your firring, through your 1-1/2" foam and into the vertical studs; this will give you 3" of screw into your vert. studs and and inch and a half in your firring and your foam. Run your horizontal firring on either 16" or 24" centers measuring up from the floor, and don't over-torque the 6" screws, but have them be fairly snug.

Then, if you want to, you can either insulate between your horizontal firring, or leave it empty. (I'm assuming that you're in a warm climate, and leaving that space empty is fine.

You can use shallow (1-1/2" deep) electrical boxes in the 1-1/2" space between your sheet rock and the vapor barrier, attaching the shallow (typically blue in color) boxes to the firring to run your electrical behind the wall, or you can run surface-mount conduit.

With the 1-1/2" foam and the R-13 in the 2x4 studs, you're at -least- at an additional R-23 without even insulating in between your interior-most horizontal firring, which you could also do. You may want to use less insulation if that creates a disparity in exterior temps in the other direction, if you know what I mean (i.e., making that wall too cool now.)

It may well be that a mere additional value of R-10, or even less, would address everything that you need to equalize your exterior walls' temps.

I know that was more than you asked for. It's a habbit of mine. Sorry. But that's what I'd do if I had block walls with what I've assumed thus far is no significant insulation in them.

What you're trying to do is to bring down the exterior wall temp of the area in question so that it closely resembles the exterior temps of any other exterior walls of your home..

It involves a bit of labor, but visqueen and insulation for a limited area aren't too expensive, nor are electrical outlet boxes, and I assume that you're likely not talking about a football stadium's area worth of 2"x4"s.

That was one of my longest posts of this millenium, and you may be shakling your head right about now saying, "What the fuck was -that- about??!" But if it were me, I'd prefer being bullet proof to being 'shot,' even if only metaphorically speaking.

moose eater

 

[Guest]

^^^
I neglected to mention that there's a fairly intricate but effective method for getting up into your rim joist bays and making even the rim band area of your walls better insulated, but it's fairly specific, so I won't type up another encyclopedia about it right now. If someone's interested, PM me, or ask that I post it, and I will.

This helps to make the -entire- wall cooler on the outside, alleviating an otherwise notable hot strip at the rim joist.

Suffice it to say that in rim bays, I -don't- advise spraying in foam. Lots of persons do it, but it will potentially destroy the integrity of the home's structure; most folks don't realize the amount of moisture that spray-in foam will contract over time, without a proper vapor barrier, and it can and will rot the wood in the rim joist bays, and those are supporting the structure above. It -is- absorbant and porous, and traps moisture better than it repells moisture!! (Is there a skull and cross-bones smiley?? If there were, I'd use it here.)

moose eater

 

[supermanlives]

i have basically a room within a room . 2 layers of insulation. the rigid 4x8 stuff from home depot and the reflectix shiny bubble wrap type and foil tape. theres an 5 inch air gap all around box between inner room and outer walls.. the rest is top secret LOL

 

[Guest]

In terms of energy efficiency, not that that's the totality of the point here, there once was a theory that leaving an air-space between the two 'walls' in a double-wall construction was more efficient.

But they found over time that the space in between resulted in some degree of 'convective looping,' and was not -the- optimal level of efficiency.

For this reason, I addressed the option of filling in the space between the sheet rock and the vapor barrier over the foil-back foam sheeting, with the limited firring with 2"x4"s in between.

But a room within a room ain't bad for the purposes herein; it's certainly a step up. ;^> And if you've got room temp air flow throgh that 5" area, then it would help to establish a standard exterior wall temp too!!

If someone's simply seeking a boost of roughly R-10, as might be the case in the block wall scenario above, and they can locate the original studs in the outer wall, or place some there, simply putting foil-back foam over that existing wall, nailing with cap nails into the studs, -or- even a temporary application of foil-back foam with a temporary silicone sealant type of caulk, and then a vapor barrier. The vapor barrier over foil-back foam sheeting is somewhat redundant, but foil isn't all that durable, and over-kill isn't always a bad thing.

moose eater

 

[Tokabowl]

My closet is in a bedroom, quite close to the outside wall and a window... im venting the heat of the lights into the room itself and basically using that as my heating for the coming winter... question is, if a flir equipped van drives past (i hear thats gettin more and more common in the uk), will they "see" that the closet is the heat source or do they just detect the overall temp in the room? (closet contains 2, maybe 3, 200W enviros + 150W hps...) hope this makes sense,
thanks

 

[Guest]

FLIR is not x-ray of any kind. It simply reads surface temps with an infra-read imaging device. If your exterior surfaces of your home are relatively standard temps, you've got little to worry about in that particular dept.

There are supposedly other things that can do internal imagery, but they are mostly assigned to military, etc. My understanding of them is very limited other than they are not very common nor are they available for civilian law enforcement.

moose eater

 

[Tokabowl]

kk thanks for the quick reassuring answer :wink:

 

[Guest]

You're welcome, Tokabowl.

Yes, the hand-held FLIR are more and more common. They're used by building engineers to locate heat loss areas on structures in order to improve energy efficiency, search and rescue teams and LEO to locate warm bodies in various terrain, and LEO to locate unusual heat signatures that might be related to cannabis, etc.

One of those double-edged swords of technology; it can help ya' or hurt ya', depending on who's using it and why.

moose eater

 

[Tokabowl]

I started worrying bout flir during my last grow when i was woken up by choppers hovering over the house for 15-20 mins in the middle o the night (lights on period...) 3 nights in a row... the grow was 1 floor below the roof so i guess they could see it pretty well (although i wasnt venting directly outdoors, but into the bathroom with windows open but it still got to 28 -29 C in there, unusual at night i guess...). Luckily nothing happened, i was never disturbed by the police again...This next grow is gonna be located on the ground floor of a 5 story house and again not vented outdoors as said previously, so i doubt the choppers can read anything at all, just those handheld ones...
I guess LEO have better things to do than trying to find my 3/4 plant personal grow anyway... well i hope so

 

[Guest]

>>>choppers hovering over the house for 15-20 mins in the middle o the night <<<

Don't be at all surprised if they were, instead, peeping at some naked chick through an open window across the way!! ;^>) Probably more common than anyone wants to know! ;^>)

The lights that you described, with even a bit of venting (don't forget to deodorize!!) shouldn't put off enough heat to interest them.

I've been involved in various degrees of activism in the past. And I've had them pull a sustained minute-long hover over my place in a stretch Bell Ranger that they use FLIR on; I flip 'em off and go about my business.

Minimum legal altitude in a residential area here is 500 ft. When they're below that, call the bastards in to the FAA, and report them for flight violations!! Turn 'em on each other!! Make sure that you get a clear reading on the tail numbers. ;^>)

moose eater

edit: I don't advise flipping them off; that's me being tempermental and irresponsible out of a severe dislike for voyeuristic fascists and totalitarians in general. But I think that that form of venting helps my cardio-vascular system. And if done energetically enough, it might even be considered a form of aerobics. ;^>)

 

[Guest]

Hey Moose, this is where i'll jump in once out of the country. I had TONS of training with all their fun toys. If you only knew some of the stuff i worked with. Scopes, Hand held units, etc.

"There are supposedly other things that can do internal imagery, but they are mostly assigned to military, etc. My understanding of them is very limited other than they are not very common nor are they available for civilian law enforcement.
"
I'll wait till i'm out of the country to go into some detail about these units and how they really work. You'd be surprise at what truely blocks them. I personally walked in front of one of their best unit with something wraped around me and they couldn't see me at all. This leads me to believe this stuff can be used to block out heat source in grows, but i want to do some testing before i say anything. OH, it's going to get very fun when i start testing some units. FUN for sure. Keep that info flowing.
Take care,
BG

 

[Guest]

Hiya' BG,

I guess that had I had more than one cup of coffee this A.M., I'd have also mentioned the use of low-level x-ray units at airports, which they gave a trial run in Fla. this last year, but as far as I know they're not using any of that stuff other than for flight security, and those units were stationary and cumbersone.

But as long as they've got a toy, they'll want to use it sometime down the road. Whether legal or not. Like someone inheriting a nice Porsche and then parking it in the driveway to never get behind the wheel again; unlikely.

I'd be interested in seeing any actual screen pics, straight from the screen's imaging, of someone masked with materials under FLIR. Seriously. I'm not familiar with any of that stuff.

Thanks,

moose eater

 

[vonforne]

Moose Eater, I'm in the building industry and I'm familiar with all types of insulation. My home is pre wired with 2 3/4 inch boxes (exterior metal boxes with mud ring). The walls are set up for a standard 3/4 furring with drywall as a finish application. I had planned on doing that and covering with some type of barrier. Yes, I do live in a very warm climate. Year around. My interior temps are usually lower than the outside temps. Thanks for all the info. It is never enough to be safe and I will use it all. Never anything like too much information though. My other side of the garage is warmer than my grow area as I have recently been keeping a record of both sides. My grow area is 10 degrees or more lower than the grow. Just checked that today when I read your post. Again thanks for all the information. And building tips. I always love some ones elses take on a subject. It gives me a sense security with a second opinion. Kind of like going to two doctors.

von

 

[Guest]

Thanks vonforne.

Good luck to you.

moose eater

 

[ScubaSteve]

You mean something like this guy's setup????

Cannabis Factory in TN.


Pretty amazing, and I wish I knew how he got nailed. (Snitch, sting, etc.....)

They were stealing electric. The power company turned them in from what I understand. Sorry to derail the thread