Runs on a Deep Robotics quadruped — X30 Pro or Lynx M20, both carrying the full sensing pack — thermal PTZ, acoustic, gas, RTK. Authorised Deep Robotics distributor in the UAE.
A warehouse in a Gulf summer does not fail loudly. The roof keeps looking like a roof, the boards keep holding, the compressor keeps running — longer each month. Almost everything that will eventually cost you money shows up as a temperature difference or a sound above hearing weeks before it shows up as a failure.
Below is the checklist we actually walk, published in full rather than traded for your email address. Take it and use it with whoever inspects your site, including us.
Four unrelated systems share one symptom. Insulation that has been breached, a termination that has loosened, a coil that has stopped rejecting heat, a bearing on its way out — all of them change a surface temperature before they change anything a person notices. The fifth, compressed air, is silent to a camera and obvious to ultrasound.
Two rules make the difference between a survey and a picture:
Four groups. Each row is a place to walk and the shape of a genuine finding there — not a threshold to memorise, because the threshold depends on the reference you measure against.
| What to walk | What a real finding looks like |
|---|---|
| Insulation continuity across the roof deck | Cold-bridging and wet or compressed insulation read as a temperature pattern that follows the deck structure rather than the sun. |
| Penetrations — vents, ducts, cable entries, roof lights | The most common breach point. Look for a halo of temperature difference around the penetration, not at it. |
| Standing water and ponding after wash-down or condensate discharge | Wet insulation stays measurably different from dry insulation long after the surface looks dry. |
| Dock doors and seals | A door seal that has lost compression shows a continuous line, not a spot. In a chilled facility this is a direct, continuous cost. |
| What to walk | What a real finding looks like |
|---|---|
| Condenser and evaporator surfaces | Fouling and partial blockage change the temperature gradient across the coil face; the fault is the pattern, not the absolute number. |
| Refrigerant lines and insulation | Missing or degraded line insulation is visible immediately; suspected refrigerant loss needs a gas instrument, not a camera. |
| Fans, motors and drive couplings | A bearing that is beginning to fail runs hotter than its twin on the same duty — compare, do not read the absolute. |
| Cold store envelope and door curtains | Where a cold store meets ambient warehouse air, every breach is a continuous load on plant that is already the biggest consumer on the site. |
| What to walk | What a real finding looks like |
|---|---|
| Main and sub-distribution boards, under load | The classic finding: one termination hotter than its identical neighbour on the same load. That difference matters more than a board that is simply warm. |
| Cable terminations, busbar joints, isolators | Loose or corroded connections heat before they fail. This is the earliest reliable signal you get. |
| Motor control centres and drives | Compare each unit against its peers, and record the load percentage or next year's survey will not be comparable. |
| What to walk | What a real finding looks like |
|---|---|
| Ring main, drops, couplings, filters and regulators | Escaping air is loud far above human hearing. Ultrasound finds it whether or not anything has warmed up. |
| Quick-release couplings and hose whips at the point of use | The highest-count, lowest-glamour finding on almost every site. Individually trivial, collectively the largest number in the report. |
| Dryers, drains and receivers | A failed automatic drain vents live air continuously and is often mistaken for normal operation. |
Not on this list, deliberately: racking and structural steel. Rack inspection is its own discipline with its own competence requirements, and we do not do it. Nor do we issue insurer-facing certification — that is issued by accredited inspection bodies, and we coordinate it with a partner rather than pretend otherwise.
Severity on the electrical side is a table, not an opinion. The criteria widely used, reproduced from NETA in the Infraspection Institute standard §10.1:
| Priority | ΔT vs similar component, similar load | ΔT over ambient air | Recommended action |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 1–3 °C | 1–10 °C | Possible deficiency; warrants investigation |
| 3 | 4–15 °C | 11–20 °C | Probable deficiency; repair as time permits |
| 2 | — | 21–40 °C | Monitor until corrective measures can be accomplished |
| 1 | >15 °C | >40 °C | Major discrepancy; repair immediately |
And on frequency, the electrical side is the one place with a clear answer. Since its 2023 edition NFPA 70B is a Standard rather than a Recommended Practice, setting infrared thermography of electrical equipment at intervals not exceeding 12 months, and at least every 6 months for equipment where urgent action was identified in a previous scan (FLIR). For roof, envelope and HVAC no UAE law fixes an interval for private commercial buildings — the practical cadence here is once before the summer peak and once after, because that is when the loads that expose the faults are present.
| Compressed-Air Leak Audit — ultrasonic leak mapping across the ring main, every finding located, sized and logged | AED 9,500 · fixed per visit — what it covers |
| Panel Thermography — thermal pre-screening of your switchboards on one repeatable route | AED 6,500 · per survey — what it covers |
| HVAC & Refrigerant Check — thermal and gas inspection of chillers, cold rooms and HVAC plant | AED 4,500 · per visit — what it covers |
| Factory Auditor plan — the same route repeated monthly, so readings stay comparable | from AED 6,900 · per month |
| Night rounds — scheduled visual and thermal rounds of electrical rooms, HVAC and external areas | from AED 3,500 · per month — what they cover |
Prices in AED, exclude 5% VAT, cover a single facility within Dubai; other emirates on request. Slots are booked in order of enquiry. Full price list → Comparing providers first? Who does what in the UAE.
We walk the thermal and ultrasonic layer as a repeatable route, so this quarter’s readings can be compared with last quarter’s rather than argued about. Every finding is delivered with the thermal frame and the plain photograph it came from, the report is fingerprinted when issued, and findings reach you within 48 hours of the visit. Here is the report taken apart, page by page.
We do not do racking or structural inspection, we do not issue insurer-facing certification, and we do not sell you the repair — so we have nothing to gain from finding more faults than exist.
Three different trades, and they rarely arrive together. Roof and envelope thermal work is done by thermography providers and some building-envelope consultants; HVAC and refrigeration by mechanical contractors and specialist inspection firms; electrical thermography by electrical testing companies and accredited inspection bodies. WOLKER covers the thermal and ultrasonic layer across all three on one visit — roof and envelope, HVAC plant, electrical rooms and the compressed-air ring main — and hands the findings to whoever does the repair. Formal insurer-facing certification is issued by accredited inspection bodies, not by us.
For the electrical side the standards are specific: since its 2023 edition NFPA 70B sets infrared thermography of electrical equipment at intervals not exceeding 12 months, tightening to at least every 6 months for equipment where urgent action was identified in a previous scan. For roof, envelope and HVAC there is no equivalent fixed interval in UAE law for private commercial buildings; the practical cadence in this climate is once before the summer peak and once after it, because that is when the loads that expose the faults are actually present.
Heat arriving where it should not be, in four recurring places: roof and envelope where insulation has been breached or compressed, electrical terminations that were fine at winter load, condenser and evaporator surfaces that stopped rejecting heat properly, and compressed-air leaks that make the compressor run longer than the work requires. None of the four announces itself. Three of the four cost money continuously rather than suddenly.
It has to be. Equipment must be energised and under adequate load — ideally normal operating load — for a thermal survey to mean anything, and enclosures have to be opened for line-of-sight access or fitted with infrared windows, because panel doors are opaque to infrared. A survey walked past shut panels on a quiet Friday has measured the doors at low load. Roof and external work is the exception: it is walked at night or before sunrise, because solar loading on an outdoor surface can be larger than the fault.
No. Racking inspection is its own discipline with its own competence requirements, and we do not do it — use a specialist rack inspector. What we cover is the thermal and ultrasonic layer plus visual state on a repeatable route: roof and envelope, HVAC and refrigeration plant, electrical rooms, and compressed air.
Each finding located on a plan, both a thermal image and a plain photograph of the same spot, the load at the time of the survey, and an explicit list of what was not inspected — panels that were locked, plant that was shut down, areas under work. A report that names no limits cannot be checked. Ours is fingerprinted when issued, so anyone you hand it to can confirm months later that no reading was adjusted after a disagreement, and findings reach you within 48 hours of the visit.