Excel Cond
Excel Cond
DIY Heat map using a "non-contact infrared thermometer" and your computer. There's a way to make your own "thermal heat map" or infrared thermal heat map, which will show you where you should insulate. This method goes beyond "the usual suspects". Thermal imaging devices cost range into the thousands. While the visual feedback is great, the cash outlay is not unless you do this for a living and can write off the expense. Here's a less flashy but very useful way of doing the same thing using an infrared non-contact thermometer and an excel spreadsheet get approximately the same thing!
Checking for "Heat Thieves" in the Walls, Floors and Ceilings
Look through walls like Superman! For this, you'll need a "non-contact infrared thermometer, (Black and Decker TLD100 or equivalent), your digital camera or a picture of the surface in question, a pen, and an Excel Spreadsheet (or equivalent). This is the "low tech" heat map. Take a picture of an outer wall in your house (one where the opposite side is the outdoors). Print it out and draw a grid so you have about one foot squares.
By selecting "Format -> Sheet -> Background" and selecting the picture on your computer, you can have the picture in the background. This comes in handy if you lose paperwork frequently too. Print out the picture and start taking readings for every square. You'll want to be no more than a couple of feet from the place you're taking the readings so you can get accurate results. Unfortunately, I can't currently get the background to print, so I took a "snapshot" of it (press and hold the control button and press "Print Screen", then open a paint program and paste it in there).
heat map - Fill in the numbers
Now that you've made your DIY heat map, take a look at the differences. In our home, we have a wall that has a four foot by seven foot cement (cinder block) area with a stone riser where a wood stove once stood, but right now, it's a big heat sink - there's a fifteen degree difference in temperature here! Also, one of our outlets is showing that I forgot to add a foam insulation insert. If you put the numbers into the excel spreadsheet, you can get a good visual.
Quick and Easy Excel heat map
Using conditional formatting for a better visual representation
Okay, so now you have a picture with a lot of numbers on it. Looks confusing and messy, yes? Here's a trick in Excel that will help you better visualize what's happening:
Select all the numbers in your spreadsheet by clicking on the upper left hand corner and dragging down and to the right to where the last number is on the lower right-hand corner. Under the "Format" menu, select "Conditional Formatting".
Condition 1 will be "Cell Value Is" "Between" 1 and 58. You can look over your numbers and see where the low point is, then select a number a couple of degrees above that (mine was 56 degrees).
Click the "Format..." button to the right, and use a dark blue color for the font. Click Okay.
Click the "Add..." button in the lower portion of the dialog box. Condition 2 for me will be "Cell Value Is" Between" 59 and 64 or what ever your middle average temperatures are, one degree above the highest number in cond.
Click the "Format..." button to the right, and use a dark green color for the font. Click Okay.
Click the "Add..." button one last time, choosing a dark red color for the font. Click Okay, then Okay again. Your numbers should now come up in color! Too bad there's only three conditions.
Your Color heat map
Now you can see where you need to focus your efforts! You can fiddle with the conditions in Excel to make it look more appealing, even leave ranges alone (skipping the 65-70 degree range so those fonts stay black, and having 71-90 red, etc.). But what we're looking for here is the disparities.
Heat map Alternative
Another way to the same result. Instead of getting fancy like I did above, you can always paste a picture next to the spreadsheet. Here, all you have to do is go to the menu bar, select "
Insert ->Picture-> From File...and choose the picture. Resize it and set it next to the heat map, and it prints, too.
Having a map helps you find voids in the insulation, drafts through electrical outlets, around windows, etc., and gives you the incentive to fix those areas and save the heat that's costing us more every year.
Andrew Perkins hosts dabblings.net and MakeHeat.com, where he writes about DIY experiments and updates the latest news on solar heating, cooling, green and environmentally friendly alternatives. He is a network administrator and computer technician who's been in the field for over twenty years. Come see the latest solar information and news at http://www.makeheat.com
excel conditional formatting problem?
Using cond. formatting on an excel spreadsheet. The shortest bar should have a small line of color in it but does not. Can't figure out why. Anyone out there an Excel pro? Thanks for looking.
can you give a sample? i am guessing this is excel 2007.
is it possible you have too many dififerent numbers, and the smallest number is just too small?
although i just did 3500 and still got a small bar
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