Aerial survey specialist BlueSky has completed an aerial thermal survey of North London to highlight heat loss from properties. Displayed on Haringey Council's headline-making environmental property portal, each property is colour coded by temperature to identify those with high levels of heat loss.

The survey is part of an initiative by Haringey to reduce energy consumption, increase energy efficiency and help the Council improve the provision of housing within the borough. The thermal mapping web page was developed and hosted by Edinburgh based IT consultancy SeeIT.

The property level survey was captured using an airborne thermal infrared sensor, a modified version of the technology used by the military for night vision. The sensor measures up to 256 individual variations in temperature and is sensitive to ÂÂC. The raw survey data was then processed by BlueSky to match Haringey Council's Ordnance Survey MasterMap giving an average heatloss value for each building polygon. By matching this information to Haringey's residential address database SeeIT has created an easy to use web page that enables visitors to search by street name or postcode and view a thermal image of their property. Visitors to the site can also zoom in and out of the image and pan around the area to find their own residence.

Haringey Council's Executive Member for Housing, Councillor Isidoros Diakides, said: This  study will play a key role in helping us address three of the biggest issues currently facing Haringey" climate change, fuel poverty and housing waiting lists. We would urge those households which are shown to be losing excessive energy to consider installing better insulation and employing other energy saving techniques, which will not only save money in fuel bills, but can also make a significant contribution to tackling climate change." 

Dan Cookson Director of SeeIT commented:"Working with BlueSky has enabled us to deliver the most up- to-date snapshot of heat loss within Haringey." He continued:"Both the Council and citizens of Haringey can now target remedial action accurately and appropriately."