IR bust near me, should I be worried?

[GroHi]

Some of the guys that run IR all over the place, then vent straight into the attic, or outside wall vent are kinda missing the benefits... the roof/vents will still light up white hot.

Been w a fire crew w one of their portable IR cameras... still can't see through walls, sorry to say... unless what's on the other side of that wall is sooooo very hot that it heats up the entire wall itself. So, agreed, your 1k isn't going to light up anything! ;-))

You should check out one of those DEA shows from last year (hate to give them support by sending a viewer their way though)... it showed a sloppy illegal garden in Detroit, or some other snow cold area. Will give you a recent image of what the FLIR copters can do...

His venting was obviously not done properly, the house had all sorts of leaks/insulation issues & there was snow everywhere, so pretty damn extreme, but still...

 

[DrDanko]

So here's what I know about FLIR. It definitely CAN see through roofs, otherwise how would anyone get busted? And most of you are correct about them not being able to use the imaging as a primary source for a warrant. But the police have said that's not generally what gets people busted. It's smell. So they see your house glow on FLIR, and then make a stop in to say hello, sniff around the front porch and find a way to get you to the door or maybe talk to you inside. Bad news obviously. But smell is what gets them the warrants mostly. And it definitely still works in winter. In fact that's the time of year that makes it even easier to spot. Yous ee snow melting on roofs and around air vents, which helps with the warrant. I'm sure it's harder to see through imaging if it's a basement, and basements are cooler most of the time. So yeah, keep safe everyone.

 

[fractaLz]

Its much much cheaper for LEO to ask local utility companies for a list of high usage homes. They can run this through a simple algorithm, and they don't need a warrant to do this. They can also just post up at the local grow store. It is free for cops to gather intel this way, vs. gassing up a chopper to use FLIR. And right now local and state LEO's are hurting for money like everyone else.

 

[GroHi]

I hear that... seems as if they've pulled every desk jockey off the floor & pushing squad cars... everyday drives I see 1-3 ppl being pulled over... all money generation (traffic tickets). Just the same, easy target/easy cash is an op...

 

[TheIrieOne]

grow during the day.. meaning have your lights on day.. lights off night..

 

[manicgrower]

FLIR camera's can NOT see through roofs or walls.They can only see heat leaving a building.If you exhaust your heat to the outside, that is what they pick up.Even if you exhaust into your attic, the heat will escape through the vents, creating a heat signature.This heat signature is what is picked up by the FLIR camera's. All this IR block does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!Just another way for these companys to play on your fears and take your money.Your best bet(if your only running 1k watts)Is to vent back into your home.It will be more expensive because of using more A/C but I think its worth a piece of mind.....

 

[oldtimer60]

I run 2 1000s but the heat and smell is run into a chimney thats not in use, so it goes about 35 feet in the air. Hope im safe but you never know

 

[GroHi]

It would depend on the temp differentials, which is what manicgrower was saying. If the exhaust plume is marginally higher than the outside air temps... it will light up... the greater the differential, the more it stands out on the FLIR.

I agree w Manic... w the fire crew used demo'd their gear, a guy had a piece of cardboard in between him & the FLIR... cardboard surface temps is what it picked up, not the body heat from behind. However, if he were to put his hand to the cardboard for a period of time, his hand would slowly transfer heat to the cardboard & create a "hot" spot on the board that the FLIR could detect, but it wouldn't be in the shape of a hand... just an odd shaped glow. Doesn't need to be "hot", just different vs other object in the field of view.

If you had 10k running behind a wall that wasn't insulated well... that wall might glow compared to the others. You sure wouldn't see the outline of a bulb or hood... lol!

 

[shortylo959]

today this morning about 7am i saw that joint in the sky it had 4blue lights on 1 side & 4red lights on the other side with one blinking green light on the bottom over my joint got me kinda noid right now i only runnin 2 400s and my room is in the middle of the building with the next apt above it but my room temp is 78-76 steady so the air from the room will not be as hot cuz its so cold where the air goes any advice what i should do

 

[lollipopman]

Ir can only be used during night time, it would be very hard to use it during light hours..

 

[ShorelineTex]

If you're really worried about IR, then I wouldn't think you would want to vent heat out of a single hole exiting the building. What you'd want to do is dissipate the heat over as large an area as possible, so that no single small area stands out as different when compared to the surroundings. To clear things up, "heat" and "IR Radiation" are two different things. "Heat" can be imagined as how energetically atoms and molecules are banging against one another, whereas "IR Radiation" (I think all radiation, actually) can be absorbed/emitted by atoms and molecules to respectively increase or decrease the amount of heat (energy) in the system (Google "black body radiation" for more info). FLIR is detecting radiation in the IR spectrum, not heat. There are special materials that you can buy that have substantially different emissivities in the IR spectrum than an ideal black body, but chances are that this would stand out just as much compared to the surrounding surfaces that are emitting more typical IR signatures. SPREAD THAT HEAT OUT OVER A LARGE AREA IN A UNIFORM FASHION!!

 

[Skunkmasterflex]

hey guys just want to add my two words to this if i may. i got into a legal bind back in the end of 2006, not for growing but for possession before it was med legal where i live. i was sitting some one night and 2 guys tried to break into my house. i was assaulted but nothing was taken. girl in the house at the time called the cops. long story short i got busted for getting fucked up in my own house. moral of the story, be more worried about who comes to your front door. sometimes you have to thing if the people coming to your door are tryin to sell you something, or tryin to smell something. if a cop says you house smelled like treez than thats all they need to pull a warrant....just some food for thought

 

[noone88]

I wanted to wait a while before posting this and i'll have to be vague, but this is what happened to the someone who isn't me in 6 2 6 area code.

Note, the medical grow op was in a city that is policed by the L*A* C0unty $heriff's dept.

Residential grow, 6k watt flowering, no mothers or clones. PG&E bill was between 1k to 1.2k, always paid on time. House is owned by someone who isn't me.

On a nightly checkup, power was turned off. Inside, posted on the wall, was a JOHN DOE search warrant. No one was arrested on the scene, but grow equipment and plants (under 100) were taken.

Affidavit was filed 2 weeks later. In the affidavit, it was stated that someone reported a suspicious person in the area. Upon patrolling the neighborhood, an officer noticed door was open. He thought the suspicious person might have went inside the home. You can figure the rest out.

No charges have been filed on the homeowner and it has been a couple of months. Lawyer was already on retainer. No one knew about the location, it was in a good neighborhood, lawn was kept, and the home appeared to be lived in.

We suspect it was patrolling cops with hand-held FLIR guns, or the highly unlikely chance it was someone at the police department with access to PG&E records.

The reason we believe this is two other residential homes have fell to a similar terms in the past year. It almost always started with a suspicious person in the area, which led to a search of the premises.

Form whatever conclusions you want. Someone that isn't me is not a newbie when it comes to illicit activities.

Other flowering rooms now have IR-Block.

 

[mrdizzle]

there would be a phone call into the 911 reporting that suspicious activity within a couple hours of that happening, they cant fake that and it would be easy enough to find out. Somene got busted around me for actually leaving their front door open for 2days, the neighbors called the cops and they found the grow.

 

[xX Kid Twist Xx]

heres a couple of cool items i just saw to help block your ir. for roughly 400 dollars seems like a good thing.

for the hoods


and for the air leaving the hoods, they make this in 6 and 8 inch.advance nutreints also has one called the iceflow.

 

[noone88]

there would be a phone call into the 911 reporting that suspicious activity within a couple hours of that happening, they cant fake that and it would be easy enough to find out. Somene got busted around me for actually leaving their front door open for 2days, the neighbors called the cops and they found the grow.

The issue is that no charges have been filed. There may/may not be records of a call, but we can't find that out unless we go to trial and go into the discovery phase.

Ultimately, it becomes a simple math problem, and i'm pretty sure law enforcement knows this as well. If the homeowner filed a charge to obtain equipment and plants (hah) back, then that means he would claim ownership of said seized property, thus turning it from a john doe into a named person.

Of course it was a medical grow, but ultimately, we would have to go through the song and dance of a trial. The cost of seized equipment and a few # of medicine was probably less than 20k. Trial fees can go anywhere from 50k to unlimited.

So.. it's a wash at the moment. If charges are filed on the homeowner for felony cultivation, then of course we'll ask for call records etc etc.

But the numbers don't make sense for the homeowner to pursue the case.

I guess it's another win for them.

 

[noone88]

heres a couple of cool items i just saw to help block your ir. for roughly 400 dollars seems like a good thing.

for the hoods


and for the air leaving the hoods, they make this in 6 and 8 inch.advance nutreints also has one called the iceflow.

That won't work when it comes for FLIR cameras. They are looking for heat signatures. Grow room temps are 75-85 when running sealed room CO2. If the 12/12 is during 9pm to 9am and outside temps are way below room temps, then the infrared heat will beam outside of any windows and also will slowly heat up the wall if you have one that is facing the outside. In other words, your grow room will light up due to the temperature difference of the room versus the environment.

 

[jordisgarden]

Listen porch monkey i own my house. i work fucking hard as hell. i own a business in my community. i have 2 kids. they go to school still. they have a life here. i grow weed.
i clean the air. i never throw grow shit in my trash. i do 800 fuckin things so i dont get caught. and i still worry like fucker. i dont lose sleep. belee dat .but i sure as fuck aint gonna say fuck it an pay some knucklehead 400 an oz to do something i can do just as well just cause im a little worried. actually im scared as fuck of having my life apart. im still gonna grow. and id bet a lot of money that most probably all the growers here whov had a run longer than 1 harvest feel the same way i do...
if your attitiude about this is too brazen. you wont be doing this for long.

 

[noone88]

^ what is this about?

 

[mrdizzle]

If your scared of prison or lose sleep over the pigs kicking in your door......DOpe aint your thing:character0110:

before they used to need a warrant to flir a house.....Dont know if chasing some car theifs or robbers and while flying and using flir to chase suspect and a house glows like a Mofo on the camera,,,,I dont know if they can use that,,,,cops have ways of working things to there advantage in there statments to make all things sound like it was done lawfull regardless if not.......

if you scared you should go back to paying Mofos like me who dont lose sleep n dont care about being sent to prison.400 a Oz..:party0022::icon_dizzy:

its from this clowns post, the dude who loves prison