How should an FM contractor build electrical thermography into a PPM contract?

Treat it as a scheduled PPM task with its own asset list, frequency and report standard. Give the thermographer the asset register, agree who opens the panels, set the load conditions and turnaround, and ask for a report that locates every finding by asset so each one can be raised as a remedial in the CAFM. The FM team’s own engineers then close each finding out.

Start from the asset register

The most useful thing an FM contractor can send before a survey is the asset list for the electrical installation: switchboards, distribution boards, MCCs, UPS, busbar and plant panels, with the asset IDs used in the CAFM. When the thermography report uses the same names and IDs, every finding lands against the right asset without anyone retyping it. Where there is no clean register, a single-line diagram and a walk round with the site engineer does the same job on the first visit, and the report becomes the baseline list for the years after.

Set the frequency in the contract

Frequency is usually set by the client’s maintenance strategy and their insurer’s expectations, and for many commercial sites it is annual. Critical sites such as data centres, hospitals and food production often add a survey at commissioning, after major changes or before peak season (see do insurers require a thermographic survey?). Writing the frequency and the asset scope into the PPM schedule stops the survey shrinking quietly from year to year.

Agree who does what

The FM contractor’s electrician opens and closes panels under the site’s safe system of work and permits (see who opens the panels).
The thermographer images each item at load, records the measured temperature, the difference in °C from a matching reference and the load at the time, and writes the report.
The FM team raises each finding as a remedial, isolates the circuit to investigate, carries out the work and closes it out.

Ti Thermal Imaging inspects and reports. We don’t carry out repairs, which keeps the survey independent of whoever does the remedial work (see maintenance contractor or independent thermographer?).

Ask for a report that fits the CAFM

For each finding the report should give the asset, its location down to circuit and phase, a thermal and visual image pair, the measured temperature, the °C difference from the reference and the load at the time. A summary table that can be lifted straight into the CAFM saves the helpdesk hours. Ti issues the report the same day as the survey, so anything urgent can be raised before the engineer leaves site (see how quickly you should get the report).

Close the loop

A finding isn’t closed when the remedial is signed off; it is closed when the repaired connection has been imaged again at load. Build a re-image into the contract, either as a short follow-up visit or as part of the next survey, and compare like for like each year (see comparing results year on year and what happens after a survey finds a hot connection).

Why the scope matters

On a London data centre build, commissioning thermography by our team found 16 busbar sections reading above 80 °C under test load, the highest 103.5 °C at a tap-off unit. Busbar runs are exactly the kind of asset that drops off a short scope. A PPM survey works the same way: it only finds what is on the list.

Frequently asked questions

Can the thermographer work under our permits and inductions?

Yes. The thermographer works to the site’s own permits, inductions and escort rules, the same as any other specialist contractor.

Can one programme cover all the sites in a contract?

Yes. Many FM contractors run one programme across a portfolio with a consistent report format (see multi-site FM portfolios).

Does thermography replace the EICR in the PPM schedule?

No. They do different jobs and both belong in the schedule (see does a thermographic survey replace an EICR?).