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“Using
Infrared to Stamp Out Grow-Ops “
By
Brian Jastrow,
CET, LEVEL III
CERTIFIED THERMOGRAPHER
President, InfraRed
Imaging Solutions
Inc. (IRIS)
The risks are low, the potential
profits are mind boggling.
These are the two factors that are fueling the
grow ops industry in the GTA.
Toronto police say that because the city’s vacancy rate is
near an all time high, apartment buildings have become a
preferred location for marijuana growers.
“The trend we are seeing is that they are using
apartment buildings because of extremely high vacancy rates and
availability” says Det. Sgt. Dave Malcon of the Toronto Police
Service Drug Squad. The average vacancy rate in 2005 was 3.7
percent in Toronto, according to CMHC.
One of the larger advantages for growers is that
many apartment buildings have a single hydro meter for the
entire building, enabling extraordinary electricity consumption
without being detected by Toronto Hydro. Not only do these grow
operations pose a serious fire and health risk to neighbors
unknowingly forced to breathe in potentially harmful mould
spores and spores from the fertilizer used to grow the plants,
some are heavily guarded by booby traps and armed gang members.
Growers beware… infrared
thermography can detect your high electricity use by thermally
inspecting the hallway electrical distribution panels.
Basically an average size unit will be equipped with an 80 Amp
or 100 Amp double pole circuit breaker. When the growers are
unplugging the 220 Volt stove outlet and running their 1000
Watt lighting systems for long periods of time this will be
detected as a thermally anomaly on the individual circuit
breaker due to the fact that these lights will create excessive
amp loading which should not exceed 80% of the circuit
capacity. For example, an 80 Amp double pole circuit breaker
should not have more than 64 Amps maximum load. High end thermal
imagers will detect this thermal pattern and transpose it into a
thermograph, basically a digital image of the hot breaker.
If building owners and managers
want an upper hand in fighting this situation, they should
invest in hiring a certified Thermographer. |
