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We sent "Dr Cold" out on assignment during our recent freezing cold snap to see if he could detect which of our public buildings were leaking heat.

His hotspot results are featured in tonight's show - ´óÏó´«Ã½1 7.30pm Monday 17 January 2011 - and you can read Dr Cold's own account of his mission at the bottom of this blog.

Using a heat seeking camera we could see where our hard earned taxes were disappearing into thin air. No building is perfect but if it's well constructed and insulated then the image should show mostly blues. If it's got problems then those patches will show up in red.

The colours are relative within a single image, so you shouldn't compare one picture with another as red areas in one image may be a different temperature altogether in another. What the red shows is where the hottest part of an individual building is.

In the above image of you can see how bad the problem is. According to our expert analyst it's about as bad as it can get. Heat is not only escaping through and round windows but through the sandstone walls.

Older buildings are inevitably more inefficient, but even more recent offices, such as Civic Centre can throw up issues.

In that image you can see that heat is actually leaking out at the floor levels. It's a construction issue where internal beams appear to connect to the outside forming a heat bridge through which all the energy can escape.

As you can see below, those that fared better in our survey were the offices in and the brand new council offices in . But not everyone can simply move into new premises.

Carlisle City Council says it has fitted new windows but cladding the civic centre would be too expensive. Eden District has already insulated the roof of the town hall and secondary glazing is planned.

Our investigation is just a snapshot - rather than a full scientific examination. But all public authorities will have to sit up and take notice as by any organisation with a fuel bill of more than half a million pounds.

It could add an extra 10% to their energy costs which of course is paid for by us.

Just as I am writing this blog entry I hear so it looks like there could a load more Dr Cold's spending time tramping our streets at night.

ALSO this week:

• We follow to find out just what it takes to be a budding European champion at whitewater kayaking.


• delves into the archives in Durham to see how our shopping habits have changed.

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For our film on heat loss from public buildings we created the chilling investigator "Dr Cold".

Actually it was Ben who recently joined our unit, so as part of the initiation we said dress up in a white coat with a clipboard and go out on one of the coldest nights of the year.

He seemed only too keen.

Here is his account of what happened...

"Just before Christmas it was so cold everyone was wearing four layers of clothing (except the ).

My mission, should I choose to accept it, was to criss-cross the region after dark and film public buildings with an infra red camera.

It dramatically reveals any heat against a cold backgrounds so in just a few minutes we can see the warmest parts of buildings - or put another way the hotspots where all the heat is escaping.

I found out when I swung it around a bit, it picks out people just as well. Bald heads stick out a mile.

had Robin. As Dr Cold my sidekick was Ray. Not so much X-Ray as an Infra Red Specialist. He was so excited at our nocturnal escapade he abandoned plans to spend the night with his best mate who was getting married the following day.

We enthusiastically toured Cumbria capturing our thermal images, but as the thermometer hit -5C Ray had had enough and like all sensible people headed indoors. Undeterred my mission took me across and to Tyneside.

Here the temperature dipped even further to a numbing -10C. The streets were quiet, except of course the Bigg Market. I couldn't resist turning the camera on them. The lads and lasses in their skimpy gear just seemed to glow all over.

Even though their mam's had warned them to take a cardigan, I only met one person wearing more than one layer!

A special mention goes to the 10 people I filmed in Centre Square in Middlesbrough. They were watching the classic It's a Wonderful Life on in temperatures of -4C.

The warm inner glow the movie gives you must have been enough because not one of them moved from their seat until the very end."

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