Drone roof and building condition surveys

Drones come under the category of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and are generally piloted from the ground by a highly experienced operator.

How drones can help

Drones are relatively new technology, and only a handful of providers are able to exploit this technology to carry out surveys.

The drone has a HD camera that records pictures on a memory card, and may also relay live images to the operator below. In many cases, drones can be used in inclement weather, providing there are no strong winds.

A drone survey does not require processes within the commercial property to cease. Work can carry on as normal meaning disruption to your business is limited.

Sometimes, when a roof survey is carried out without the use of a drone, business needs to be temporarily shut down which can cost you money in lost productivity. This doesn’t happen with a drone survey leaving work to continue as pilots only require a clear line of sight for the drone's destination.

Roof and building surveys

Traditionally, specialist personnel ascend or descend a building to carry out a survey. Any job that requires working at height carries risk, and is therefore expensive. Surveyors may need to put up scaffolding to conduct a survey, or use lifting equipment to inspect high levels up close.

Roof inspections and surveys whilst not inherently dangerous, do carry some degree of risk. Some older buildings can pose serious health and safety concerns for those carrying out the work. There are certain rules that need to be followed. Abseilers should be registered with the International Rope Access Trade Association (IRATA), and work needs to be carried out when the weather conditions are suitable. There are health and safety rules to take into consideration, and the material obtained from the survey can vary depending on the difficulty of access.

Surveying a large site manually is a complex and costly affair. We can use drones to carry out all kinds of useful surveying functions for your building. They allow for simple and straightforward surveys even in the most inaccessible areas with no risk to human life.

Drone building surveys are ideally suited for tall or inaccessible buildings. There are a number of benefits for using a drone when they’re compared with other survey methods:

• A drone survey does not need time spent erecting ladders, scaffolding or viewing platforms and it does not need any extra man power so the process is completed much more quickly than a traditional survey. A drone survey is highly accurate and can provide better results than again, more traditional survey services which can save you money in the long run.
• Drones can quickly scale walls, fly over roofs or survey large sites or complexes, with no disruption to the occupants within. We can use drones to look at the condition of a building, to look at the state of decay in a dilapidated building, or to closely inspect the roof. The data we collect will capture HD video and photographs of the area.
• Drones can reach highly inaccessible roof areas or areas which are tricky to examine with the human eye thereby reducing Health and Safety Risks.
• Better images
• Improved environmental friendliness

We can fly drones up to a height of 400ft (120m), so most roofs are well within reach. If you require an aerial shot for your company brochure or website, our operator can incorporate this requirement into the flight.

Our service includes full pre-flight planning, and the survey itself can take less than an hour from set-up to completion.