Now council chiefs are sending heat detector vans down your street... to snoop on 'wasters'

By David Derbyshire for MailOnline
Updated: 15:00 EST, 22 January 2009

Town halls are photographing houses in the middle of the night to see whether they are wasting energy.

The thermal images, which show heat escaping though windows, doors and roofs, will be sent to homeowners to encourage them to insulate.

Tens of thousands of properties have been photographed over the past few months and there are plans to extend the scheme to every house in the country.

Glowing evidence: Thermal cameras are used to check how much heat is leaking

The images show warmer temperatures as whites, reds, yellows and oranges, and cooler temperatures as greens and blues.

So in the pictures above, the house with the mainly green walls is well insulated, only losing a little heat through the top of the garage door and upstairs windows. The other property is radiating heat through the walls.

The company behind the taxpayer-funded Heatseekers scheme denies the photographs are an intrusion into privacy.

But the project will inevitably raise concerns about the rise of the Big Brother state.

At least 25 councils have signed deals with Heatseekers. This week, the vans were touring Salford in the evening taking around 1,000 images an hour.

A spokesman for Salford City Council said: ‘We hope people don’t see it like Big Brother is watching you – it’s about helping people cut their energy bills and save money.

'Depending on their age, address and circumstances people may qualify for free or grant-aided insulation.’

Ride and seek: The heat detector vans used by 25 local authorities in Britain

Experts say a typical home wastes hundreds of pounds on lost heat every year – mostly through windows, walls and lofts.

Some estimates suggest that one pound in three spent on household energy is thrown away.

Heatseekers, which is owned by the insulation company Mark Group, says that eight million homes in the UK need insulation.

It carries out its surveys using a fleet of seven marked vans fitted with thermal cameras which drive down streets at 10mph.

The pictures are taken between 7pm and 2am in the autumn, winter and early spring when people are using central heating.

Two or three weeks after the van has passed down a street, families get a copy of the image and a letter explaining how they could save money on their bills.

The scheme is being funded by the Government’s Carbon Emissions Reduction Target scheme.