Trying to track down drafts and air leaks. The incense sticks that I tried do not produce enough smoke to really tell anything. Anyone have suggestions about what to use?
Making smoke trails
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Yep, that works, and I have one. Still like the idea of watching the smoke trails. There's still a little of that 12 year old boy in me that finds such things intriguing. Not much, but I'm hanging on tight.
Ha! That was the first thing I thought of, alas, I gave up smoking cigarettes years ago, and it would be a bad idea to have a pack around here these days. And expensive, too I see.OK. One word. Marboros.
highanddryinco
Burning Hunk
Go out and buy a smoke pencil . Cheap and will pickup a draft quicker
than a dog can dump on your lawn
Like this one
(broken link removed)
than a dog can dump on your lawn
Like this one
(broken link removed)
At work I use a puffer pen. Its a rubber bulb that you attach a smoke tube to. The tube has salts in it that you crush and it emits hydrogen sulfide smoke. Give the little bulb a squeeze and you'll get a good cloud. Unfortunately I don't know who makes them or how expensive they are. The one TSC sells that Johneh linked is probably the most economical one you can get.
sportbikerider78
Minister of Fire
I second thermal imagery. See if you can borrow one. Here is an image I was able to capture with one I borrowed from work.
![[Hearth.com] Making smoke trails](https://www.hearth.com/talk/attachments/blockwall-chimney-rev2-webp.192464/ "[Hearth.com] Making smoke trails")
That's what I was thinking. I'd like to do both, but will not be buying a thermal camera anytime soon. I will start asking friends if they have access to one.
I swore last winter that I was going to have the easy, high gain stuff done well before this winter. Only thing we got done is a new tight roof. I'm hoping to positively id these items, and, as the drafts are substantial, they are the most important things to fix. The smoke pen is the best, cheapest tool to use for this first task.
I also want to see how much I'm losing up the chimney before I get my permanent block off plate installed.
Hasufel
Feeling the Heat
Back in my day we called them "cigarettes." Kids these days gotta come up with fancy names for stuff.
OK. One word. Marboros.
Heeehaaaaawww. And I thought yesterdays funnies found on hearth would never be equaled! Wow, novel solution. Easily obtainable. Somewhat self explanatory. Fits the bill for most users here
Just don't read the fine print......
jetsam
Minister of Fire
FLIR Systems has come out with a $250 thermal imager that plugs into your cellphone, and it seems to have fairly positive reviews. (If you are thinking that this sounds expensive, you have never priced out thermal imagers before... $250 is unheard of for something that is not homemade.)
There are ways to make a really cheap imager, but you lose the bit where you can see the actual temperatures of stuff. (So you'll see that this part is much colder than that part, but not that this part is 40F and this part is 80F.) You also won't get the visible-spectrum enhancement that many commercial IR cameras do.
If you're interested though, there's instructions for modding old digital cameras by peeling the filters off the sensor lens, and (far more complex) compositing single-pixel readings into a picture (which lets you use a cheap IR heat gun to take a zillion readings to build up an IR heat map).
There are ways to make a really cheap imager, but you lose the bit where you can see the actual temperatures of stuff. (So you'll see that this part is much colder than that part, but not that this part is 40F and this part is 80F.) You also won't get the visible-spectrum enhancement that many commercial IR cameras do.
If you're interested though, there's instructions for modding old digital cameras by peeling the filters off the sensor lens, and (far more complex) compositing single-pixel readings into a picture (which lets you use a cheap IR heat gun to take a zillion readings to build up an IR heat map).
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