Maesin: Bringing Thermographic Intelligence to Retrofit Quality Assurance
When retrofit goes wrong, it isn’t only a missed opportunity, it can destroy homes and trust. From cavity wall insulation trapping moisture to EPC ratings that mislead more than they guide, the sector has too often fitted measures without truly understanding the buildings beneath.
Matthew Forbes Milloy
When the insulation problem got found out.
That’s the problem Ida set out to solve with Maesin, a new company pioneering the use of thermal imaging and AI to benchmark building performance before and after retrofit.
“Maesin is a company that's focusing on retrofit quality assurance through thermal imaging and AI. And that's basically what we do”.
Fixing the bottleneck in thermography
Thermal imaging has been used in building diagnostics for decades, but Ida argues the sector has struggled to scale it.
“We are focused on the problem of what happens with thermal imaging data after it's been collected because we found through working with thermographers that this was the real bottleneck in the process”.
Data collection can be fast, up to 3,000 homes in two weeks with drones and tripod cameras - but analysis can take months, making it impossible to use at scale. Maesin’s software compresses that time dramatically, benchmarking against level 2 thermographer standards so councils and housing associations can act quickly with confidence.
Why thermography matters now
This problem needs fixing now;
“Over the past few months... these 30,000 homes that were affected by poorly installed insulation. And it's clear that we have a quality problem in retrofit. If we don't solve the quality problem and make quality assurance and quality control scalable, then we're just going to scale the problems”.
Instead of recommending single “fixes,” Maesin provides evidence-led diagnostics:
“We don't make any specific recommendation of a measure that should be installed. We actually focus first on verifying the hypothesis about what's going on. It's like in medicine, you need to bring in multiple symptoms to triangulate what's happening”.
This means insulation isn’t fitted on damp walls, and retrofit coordinators can benchmark real building performance, not assumptions.
Before and after: creating a baseline
Maesin’s pilots with UK councils this winter will produce thermal reports for hundreds of homes.
“The output of that is we produce a report for each property… it’s not based on assumptions like an EPC, it’s showing you what’s actually going on in your house. And now that household has a thermal survey that they got done before their retrofit”.
That baseline is crucial:
“If you get it before and after, it can really catch and prevent a lot of mistakes. Over time, the data we collect on certain archetypes or contractors just gives us more information and feedback about what's working and what's not”.
Ida Ahmad
Why councils should care
For councils under pressure to deliver Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and ECO4 projects, Ida says this is insurance against failure.
“Identifying defects before is going to make sure you don't start slapping on insulation when there's a damp problem. And the same thing afterwards is checking that there isn’t a defect in the way it's been installed that's going to prevent you getting the benefits you were promised”.
With a heating season deadline looming, Ida is urging councils to move fast.
“We still have some capacity, but they need to act quickly, otherwise they won't be able to get in this heating season and they'll have to wait until next year”.
Roles who will benefit most:
- Energy Managers
- Retrofit Project Managers
- Fuel Poverty Leads
- Net Zero Programme Officers
- Housing Association Asset Managers
- Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund / ECO4 project leads
Why act now?
“We still have some capacity, but they need to act quickly, otherwise they won't be able to get in this heating season and they'll have to wait until next year” - Ida
📩 Reach Ida via [LinkedIn] or email to discuss piloting in your authority before the end of OCTOBER.
From fuel poverty to healthier homes
Ida’s motivation is rooted in lived experience. During her PhD, she visited a cold, damp home and quickly fell ill.
“It really made me realize the limits of not having data… For me, the real trade-off wasn’t just saving money, it was not getting sick anymore. That’s the reality for a lot of people”.
Looking ahead
Maesin is currently piloting with councils, but Ida’s ambition is bigger:
“In the next 12 months, we'll be launching this with a number of councils and getting case studies out of those. Beyond that is scaling it up and doing it a lot bigger at scale”.
In a retrofit sector desperate to rebuild trust, thermographic evidence may be the missing diagnostic step. And with Maesin, Ida wants to make sure quality assurance finally scales with demand.
Ida Ahmad