Building Diagnostic Tools We Use: Creating and Organizing Images – GreenBuildingAdvisor

By KOHTA UENO | October 17, 2025

This column will be a bit of a detour from just looking at diagnostic tools. Instead, gathering and recording visual information—i.e., photos—is a critical part of how I go about building investigations and reporting the results to clients, so I figured I’d share some tips and tools on that topic.

And if you want to nerd out on diagnostic tools, here’s my four-part 2019 GBA series on what I use in my forensic field work:

How to Look at a House Like a Building Scientist (Part 1: Air): Using diagnostic tools to find air leaks that make homes inefficient, uncomfortable, and are often the cause of moisture-related problems.

How to Look at a House Like a Building Scientist (Part 2: Heat) A nuanced look at thermal imaging and how it can shed light on much more than heat loss.

How to Look at a House Like a Building Scientist (Part 3: Temperature, Humidity, and HVAC Systems): Temperature and humidity meters are useful tools for building investigations, specifically to measure HVAC equipment performance.

How to Look at a House Like a Building Scientist (Part 4: Water): Water and moisture problems are the most common cause of durability issues and damage to buildings.

Picture Organization

First, some boring stuff: tips on taking photos during an investigation. I often come back from a day on-site with 500+ photos on my camera roll, so having some way to keep them organized is pretty critical. Anything you can do to leave “bread crumb trails” for yourself in the pictures is helpful when you’re sitting down to organize your photos and write the report a week later.

For instance, as soon as I get off the elevator, walk down a floor, or go into a room, I snap a picture of the floor number and room…