Winter shows up on camera
A ten-degree night, the house warmed twenty degrees above it, and a thermal camera turns every top plate, chase and unsealed rim joist into a bright leak you can point at. We photograph your heat leaving, quote the fix room by room, and hand you the pictures — you should see what the money is for.
What we do
What we do to a cold house
Air sealing — from $1,150
The holes first, always before the thickness: top plates, balloon-frame chases, the gap where the chimney passes, wire and pipe penetrations, the basement ceiling. On a valley farmhouse this single line moves the blower-door needle further than six inches of cellulose ever will.
Dense-pack walls — $4.60 / sq ft
Empty cavities filled through one 2-inch hole per bay, blown to 3.5 lb/ft³ so it cannot settle, plugged and patched the same afternoon. The hollow knock of an uninsulated wall goes dead, and the wind that used to come through the siding stops announcing itself.
Attic to R-60 — $2.30 / sq ft
Dams at every recessed light and the hatch, baffles keeping the soffits breathing, then cellulose blown deep enough that the joists disappear. R-30 with wind-washed eaves performs like R-22 — the scan shows it, the top-up fixes it, and the ice dams stop with it.
Rim joists & cellar ceilings
Two-part foam on the box sill with the plate sealed to the stone, and R-38 dense pack under floors over cold cellars. The floor over a cellar is an air leak wearing a sock disguise — seal it, and the slippers become optional.
The method
Four visits, in order
The same sequence on every house — the only variable is which lines the scan says yours needs.
The scan — free
Ninety minutes, infrared camera and blower door, room by room. You watch the walls stream white where the heat leaves, and the pictures go in your file.
The seal
Every hole the camera named, foamed or caulked in a day. Combustion appliances get a spillage test after, because tight and dumb is a defect.
The fill
Dense-pack walls, attic to R-60, foam on the rim — one crew, one van, holes plugged as the day advances.
The re-test
The blower door comes back out and both readings go on the invoice. The job is not done until the number moves.
The Ondaga Valley, 2025 — 2026
Valley attics, fixed
Six jobs photographed at the re-test, insulation card still pinned to the hatch. An attic either holds R-60 or it does not.
The scan took an hour and a half and found the entire east wall empty — the builder of forty years ago simply skipped it. Dense-pack, attic top-up, and the February oil delivery went from four to two. The before-and-after pictures are on our fridge.
Two roofers wanted to sell us a new roof over the ice dams. Loon Creek sealed the top plates, blew R-60 with proper baffles, and the dams have not come back in three winters. It cost a fifth of the roof.
They foam-sealed the rim joist on a Tuesday and by Thursday the kitchen floor stopped being the thing every visitor mentioned. Both blower-door readings are printed on the invoice — 2,900 down to 1,100.
The re-test clause
A number we will put in writing
The scope carries the CFM50 reduction we expect as a percentage, in writing, before you commit. Valley houses test between 2,500 and 5,000 CFM50 before we touch them; the scan tells us which end yours is on and what forty percent of it looks like. The meter either agrees with us or it does not — and you get to watch it try.
The re-test promise
If the second blower-door reading does not beat the percentage on the scope, we come back and finish the sealing at no charge, and re-test until it does. Both readings print on the invoice — the job is a number, not a feeling.
Before you call
Questions the scan answers
The five every valley house asks. If yours is not here, the shop line runs seven to five and the scan is still free.
Does the infrared scan work in summer?
It needs a temperature difference of about fifteen degrees, so in July we run the air conditioning hard or wait for a cool evening — the camera only cares about the gap, not the season. Winter scans are the sharpest, and those we can do any day the valley is being the valley.
Is dense-pack wall fill messy?
One 2-inch hole per bay, drilled inside with a dust skirt, plugged and patched flush the same day. The cellulose stays in the wall — that is what the 3.5 lb/ft³ density is for. Drop cloths everywhere, and the van carries its own HEPA vacuum.
What about the rebates?
We file every utility and state program the work qualifies for and take the rebate off the invoice where the program allows it. The scan report is written in the format the programs ask for, because we write it that way on purpose.
Can a house be sealed too tight?
Yes, and we check for it — every combustion appliance gets a worst-case spillage test after sealing, and if the house needs make-up air it goes in the scope. Tight with planned ventilation is the goal; tight by accident is somebody else’s shortcut.
What is the payback on the valley?
At the median — 41% off the heating bill — the work pays for itself in three to five heating seasons, and the rebate usually pulls a season off that. Your own number comes off the scan and the fuel bills you photograph for us, not off a brochure.
Scan season runs September to March, valley-wide, usually within the week. (555) 021-7764 · scans@looncreekthermal.example
Book the free scan
Tell us the town, the decade the house was built, and which room loses January. The infrared scan and blower-door reading cost nothing, the pictures are yours either way, and every quote is written room by room from what the camera saw. scans@looncreekthermal.example