While seeking ways to control heating and cooling costs at his new South Hill home, Chris Permann stumbled on what he hopes will become a multimillion-dollar business.


A Wall Street Journal story Permann read about digital infrared thermal cameras not only provided the answer to his own energy-related problem, he says, but prompted him to launch a business called Thermotek, which he believes could grow rapidly.


Permann isnt a novice in business. He also owns a software-distribution company in Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., called NetSystems LLC.


The keys to the new venture are two thermal cameras Permann bought, one which costs $20,000 and the other $75,000, that use infrared technology to locate heat variations in the interiors of homes and commercial buildings.


By tracking variations in temperature in various parts of a room, its easy to determine where insulation in walls, ceilings, or floors is missing, inadequate, or wet, he says.


Temperatures can vary by 14 degrees within three feet in the ceiling of even a new home because of insulation problems, Permann says. The thermal imager in the camera can read those differences and display on the cameras screen what amounts to an X-ray of the structure.


The U.S. military uses the technology routinely, including to enhance night vision, and such cameras also are used by companies such as Chicago-based Boeing Co. to determine if bearings in a jet engine are overheating and Spokane-based Avista Corp. to find electrical faults at power stations and in transformers, Permann says.


Use of the technology for general energy audits in homes and businesses, however, still isnt a common practice, he says.


Permann says he doesnt envision that his company will compete with home inspectors, who often are employed to help home buyers find deficiencies of all types in a home they are considering buying. Thermotek, he says, focuses exclusively on energy efficiency.


Those inspectors deal with whats visual, but we deal with whats not visual. We can see inside the walls, he says.


The business, which launched May 1, charges between $200 and $300 for an energy audit of an average-sized home or small business. Permann generally uses the smaller, $20,000 camera for residential and small commercial jobs, and the larger one for bigger commercial buildings.


He says energy costs, after mortgage payments and taxes, typically are the biggest expenses in home ownership, and those costs are rising.


Im 55 years old, and I can never recall a utility ever filing for a rate decrease, he quips. The cost of natural gas has just gone crazy. In the Northwest its comparatively low, but that may change.


Pointing a camera-generated infrared dot at the ceiling of his 4,000-square-foot home, he finds a 7 degree Fahrenheit higher temperature only a few feet away from a lower reading. The variation appears on the cameras screen as a lighter image. In the summer months, the warmer temperature reading would indicate a shortage of insulation. In the winter, he would expect to find an insulation problem where the temperature was cooler.


As Permann walks around a house, he scans the walls, ceilings, and floors to find areas of temperature variation, which he calls anomalies, then normally takes one digital picture of each anomaly, which provides all the information hell need to pinpoint problems.


Typically, with the laser, he scans all the surfaces that interact with the outside world, he says. The smaller camera, which is no bigger than a television remote control, also can record digitally his vocal interpretations of the data as he walks around the building.


After completing a walk-through, which typically takes one to three hours, Permann connects the camera to his personal computer and downloads all of the synchronized infrared images, temperature readings, and audio information. He says the data are so exact that temperature readings are imbedded on every one of about 655,000 pixels on the standard 2- by-4-inch image he works with.


Depending on how many temperature anomalies he finds in one structure, hell spend between 90 minutes and two hours analyzing the data, then print out whats normally a four-page report for his client. Most of the reports he creates for customers include images, graphs, and suggestions about how to correct energy-loss problems, he says.


The client then can decide whether to fix the deficiencies, to hire a contractor, or to take no action at all, Permann says.


Its generally pretty easy to find out how much it will cost to fix a problem, but there arent any calculators available to determine how much money you will save by adding insulation to a given wall, he says.


Permann contends that information provided by Thermotek could be used as a bargaining tool when individuals are negotiating to buy a home.


When potential buyers know about energy deficiencies, they either can request that energy improvements be made prior to a purchase or lower the amount they offer for a home, he says. He also says that contractors could hire Thermotek to test the energy efficiency of structures they build.


The thermal cameras can pick up things besides wall and ceiling temperature variations that the naked eye cant see, he says.


For instance, recessed light fixtures are a common source of air loss in homes or businesses; the fixtures usually look good, but in many instances havent been insulated, Permann says.


When those fixtures arent insulated, its like heating your home with the window open, he says.


The cameras also can be used to diagnose other problems, Permann says. They can detect beehives, termites, and rodents in walls, and even take quick predictive maintenance readings on electrical panels to detect heat variations that might indicate a dangerous electrical problem and alert a building owner to call an electrician, he says.


Permann is doing about three energy audits a week here, but hopes to increase that volume to three audits a day soon, he says. Thermoteks only other employee, Permanns brother, works in Minden, Nev., using the larger camera to perform industrial energy audits in the Reno area, of which he does between two and four a week, Permann says.


Permann predicts that within five years, Thermotek will employ a large number of people, most of them trained to use additional cameras Thermotek would buy. He plans to target the Spokane, Seattle, Portland, and Boise markets soon, and mulls eventually expanding into northern-tier states, where heating costs are huge, he says.


Permann, who earlier made his living as a carpenter and real estate developer before buying the California software-distribution company, moved to Spokane with his wife, Karen, about a year and a half ago from Las Vegas.


Thermotek is based out of their South Hill home.


Contact Rocky Wilson at (509) 344-1264 or via e-mail at rockyw@spokanejournal.com.