Effect of the Inspection Conditions on the In-Situ Infrared Thermographic Examination of Facades with Adhered Ceramic Cladding Ecem Edis 1 Inês Flores-Colen 2 Jorge de Brito 3 ABSTRACT Ceramic based facade materials are widely used in Portugal. Some of the durability problems of ceramic facades are joint failures, delamination and efflorescence, and one of the reasons of this kind of problems is water/moisture caused by condensation, rising damp or precipitation. Infrared (IR) thermography is a well developed non-destructive examination technique in terms of detecting thermal and air infiltration problems, and the environmental inspection conditions are well studied. Inspection of moisture problems using IR thermography is a comparatively new field, and most of the studies either focus on applications on historical buildings or investigate the applicability on different materials in laboratory conditions. Environmental factors affecting in-situ thermographic inspection of moisture problems of different building technologies are not well studied yet. In-situ inspection of adhered ceramic facades to detect presence of moisture before the occurrence of any visible signs is a possible accomplishment of IR thermography. In relation with these facts, suitable inspection conditions in terms of solar heat gain for in-situ examination of adhered ceramic facade claddings by IR thermography are discussed in the paper. Parameters like characteristics of ceramic tiles or inspection time and their effects on the inspection of moisture problems present in the facade system are studied theoretically, and case studies are presented as well. KEYWORDS Infrared thermography, adhered ceramic facade cladding, in-situ inspection, environmental inspection conditions, moisture. 1 Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul, TURKEY, ecem@itu.edu.tr 2 DECivil-IST, Technical University of Lisbon, Lisbon, PORTUGAL, ines@civil.ist.utl.pt 3 DECivil-IST, Technical University of Lisbon, Lisbon, PORTUGAL, jb@civil.ist.utl.pt