A borescope is a camera on the end of a flexible probe with its own light. Through a 10mm hole drilled in a mortar joint it shows the inside of the cavity: not all of it, but enough to know what is there.
What the borescope shows
- Whether the cavity is filled, part-filled or empty, and with what material
- The condition of the fill: dry and standing, wet and discoloured, slumped, shrunk, cracked or missing
- The width of the cavity, which decides whether it should have been filled at all
- The wall ties: their spacing, whether they are fouled with mortar, whether they are rusting
- Debris at the base of the cavity and whether the cavity can drain
- Cavity trays over openings, present or absent, and whether water is sitting on them
- Sleeves behind airbricks, or fill where the sleeve should be
Where we look
Every elevation, at low and high level, and wherever damp or cold shows inside. On the weather side we look at more points.
What it cannot do
A borescope sees a few inches either side of the hole. It cannot survey a whole cavity from one point, which is why we drill several, and it cannot see through fill to the far leaf.
After extraction
The same tool checks the work. Once the extraction is finished, the borescope goes back into the cavity on every elevation and we look for anything left: fibre on ties, bead in corners, foam on the inner leaf.
The borescope survey is part of every free survey. Book a free survey and see what is in your own cavity.
