Borescope Camera Inspections

There is a stage in most surveys where the readings point to one place and the next step is to open it. Before we do, we want to see what is there. A borescope is a small camera and light on the end of a flexible cable, connected to a screen. It goes through an existing gap, such as the hole where a pipe passes through a floor, a loose board, a downlight or the space behind a bath panel. Failing that, a single drilled hole a few centimetres across is enough. Inside, it shows the pipe, the joint, the water and the staining on the joists as they actually are.

We use it under suspended timber floors, in the void between a ceiling and the floor above, and behind bath and shower panels. It also reaches inside pipe chases and boxing, kitchen plinths, the space behind kitchen units and the back of airing cupboards. The cable bends around obstacles and the camera head can be angled, so a run of several metres can be checked from one opening. What it shows is not a reading to be interpreted but a picture. That might be a drip forming on a compression joint, a corroded length of copper, a wet patch of insulation, or a dry void that rules an area out just as usefully.

The borescope is a confirming tool rather than a search tool. The thermal camera, the acoustic microphone and tracer gas narrow the search to a small area first. The borescope then shows what is in that area, so the opening can be exactly where it needs to be and no larger. Stills from the camera go into your report alongside the thermal images and readings, which gives the insurer a photograph of the leak itself before the floor or wall was opened. If the camera shows something different from what the readings suggested, we say so and adjust the plan.