Wareham & Crowe Electric

Preventative Maintenance

What is Preventative Maintenance?

Preventative maintenance (PM) is the regular and routine maintenance of equipment and assets in order to keep them running and prevent any costly unplanned downtime from unexpected equipment failure. A successful maintenance strategy requires planning and scheduling maintenance of equipment before a problem occurs.

Infrared Thermography

Wareham & Crowe Electric works with technologies such as Thermal Imaging (Infrared Thermography) to perform preventative maintenance for our customer's facilities.

What is Thermography?

Defined as the process of acquisition and analysis of thermal information from non-contact thermal imaging devices. Most commonly now with the use of specialized cameras. Thermography means "writing with heat", just as photography means "writing with light". The picture that is generated is called a thermogram or thermal image. "infrared" is what makes it non-contact - there are ways of creating thermal images with contact methods also, but are a much more intrusive way. The word "science" should not scare us off. Most everything in our daily lives can be turned into science if we extend it beyond common knowledge. In our case, we need to know how to take thermograms and analyze them. This includes the operation of the instruments and understanding of heat, temperature, and heat transfer. Our cameras are non-contact thermal imaging devices.

Why Thermography on electrical systems?

Thermal imaging of electrical systems is the most established application for thermography. Its value in preventative maintenance comes from being the only technology or technique that can identify defects such as poor connections, over loaded cables and faulty electrical equipment as safely and as quickly, whilst causing no interruption to normal operation of your business.

Applications of Thermography in Electrical Systems

Fire Risk Assessment Recommendations

Why electrical fires start (most common) -Electrical fires rarely start from "too much current alone". They usually start from heat caused by resistance, such as:

Loose or improperly torqued connections
Corrosion or oxidation on lugs and bus connections
Overloaded conductors or breakers
Phase imbalance in three-phase systems
Failing breakers, fuses, or contactors

All of these problems generate heat long before they arc, melt, or ignite surrounding materials.

Predictive Maintenance Activities

Thermal imaging is one of the strongest tools for predictive maintenance in electrical systems because it shows how equipment is actually behaving under real operating conditions - not how it should behave on paper.

Predictive maintenance isn't about fixed schedules. It's about identifying early signs of failure so maintenance is done only when needed-and before failure occurs.

Thermal imaging fits this perfectly because heat is the earliest measurably symptom of most electrical problems.

Insurance Requirements

Insurance requirements for electrical thermography are becoming more common, and it's not random. It's driven by loss data, cost control, and proof of risk management.

Why's insurers increasingly require thermography

Electrical fires are one of the highest-loss claims
Thermography reduces both frequency and severity of claims
It's a proven, measurable control
Many losses show missed warning signs
It's cost-effective compared to losses

Commissioning New Equipment

Thermography use for commissioning new equipment verifies that the system is installed correctly, operating as designed, and safe under real load-before the owner takes full responsibility for it.

What matters during commissioning

New does NOT mean correct
It verifies proper installation under load
It establishes a baseline for future maintenance
It catches installation errors before warranties shift
It confirms load balance and design assumptions

Benefits of Thermography

Reduce un-scheduled power outages
Detect problems quickly, without interrupting services
Assess priorities for corrective action
Minimize preventative maintenance and troubleshooting time
Comply with insurance company requirement
Check for defective equipment while still under manufacturer warranty

Thermography (thermal imaging) makes it possible to identify electrical defects such as loose connections and over loaded circuits ((the most common cause of electrical fires), transformer cooling faults, motor winding faults and induced currents.

Why Should Thermographic Surveys Be Certified When Undertaking Thermal Imaging Surveys Of Electrical Equipment

Although thermal images often appear to be self-explanatory when presented in a thermographic report, correctly identifying defects/anomalies in the first place relies on two key factors:

The thermographer's understanding of the construction and operation of the electrical systems together with its possible failure modes.
The thermographer's ability to interpret what he/she is observing when using a thermal imaging camera such that the correct conclusion is drawn and presented within the report

Without these two factors in place, there is very real risk that anomalies/defects are misunderstood and incorrectly reported. For instance reporting supposed defects which are in fact operating normally, or even worse missing/not identifying actual defects.

To prevent this risk, the use of a thermographer that is trained is vital. Certification ensures the thermographer have been suitably trained, with their knowledge assessed and have accumulated the required amount of experience is undertaking thermographic surveys within the electrical application of thermography

Wareham & Crowe Electric

Preventative Maintenance

What is Preventative Maintenance?

Infrared Thermography

What is Thermography?

Why Thermography on electrical systems?

Applications of Thermography in Electrical Systems

Benefits of Thermography

Why Should Thermographic Surveys Be Certified When Undertaking Thermal Imaging Surveys Of Electrical Equipment

Wareham & Crowe Electric Ltd. is ITC (Infrared Training Center) trained and uses FLIR professional grade thermal imaging cameras

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