Drone roof survey in Taunton

Taunton sits on the flat floor of the Vale of Taunton Deane with the Quantocks, Blackdowns and Brendon Hills around it. It is noticeably drier and better sheltered than anywhere on the Devon coast, and that changes what a survey is looking for.

Salt corrosion is not the driver here. Frost is. Cold air drains off the hills into the vale overnight, so the town gets more frost and more fog than the surrounding higher ground, and freeze and thaw on damp mortar is the main mechanism taking roofs apart.

Fog also means slow drying, so despite the lower rainfall, shaded slopes and valleys stay damp and grow moss much as they do further west.

Somerset has a strong clay tile tradition and Taunton shows it: double roman and pantile profiles across the Victorian and Edwardian stock, distinctly different from the slate that dominates Devon.

Clay tiles are durable but they are individually more fragile than slate in some respects, and they rely on a good bedding at ridge and verge. Frost damage shows on clay as spalling and delamination on the exposed face, which is invisible from the ground and obvious in a close photograph.

The older centre also has parapet and box gutter construction on the commercial buildings, and single ply and felt flat roofing across the town centre and the retail parks.

Taunton has grown substantially in the last twenty years, with major development on all four sides of the town. New estate roofing is generally well specified, with dry ridge and verge systems that avoid the mortar problems of older stock.

What it is not immune to is workmanship. A flashing cut short at an abutment, a rooflight without the correct upstand, a valley left with debris in it from the build, or a dry verge clip that was never properly engaged: none of those show for several years and all of them are visible in a photograph.

For anyone still inside a warranty period, a flown survey produces exactly the kind of dated, photographed evidence a builder's defect list needs.

Taunton Castle and the buildings around it, along with the pavilions and stands at the County Cricket Ground, are examples of a roof type the surrounding new estates do not have at all: large public or semi-public buildings with a mix of ornamental and utilitarian roofing on the same structure, often altered for modern use in ways that leave old detailing sitting next to new. Vivary Park's older buildings share the same issue on a smaller scale, and none of it can be properly assessed from a car park.