Drone Roof Survey
Drone Roof Survey
The whole roof photographed at 100 megapixels, elevation by elevation, written up and with you inside 48 hours, no scaffold required.
This is the survey most people want. Something has gone wrong, or something might have gone wrong, and the only way to find out has always been to get somebody up there. That means a tower or a scaffold, a day of disruption and a bill before anybody has looked at anything.
A flown survey gets the same view in under an hour. The aircraft works its way round the building at a standoff distance, covering every slope, every valley, every abutment and every stack, and the camera resolution means you can crop into a single slate afterwards without the picture falling apart.
What you are buying is not the flight. It is the report that follows it: a plain description of what is on your roof, where it is, and how worried you should be about each item.
What is included
- Every roof slope photographed from multiple angles
- Close detail on ridges, hips, verges and valleys
- Chimney stacks, flaunching, pots and flashings
- Gutters, downpipes and the junctions where they meet the roof
- Rooflights, dormers, parapets and any flat sections
- A written report within 48 hours with annotated images
- Full resolution originals so your roofer can zoom in themselves
What a survey can and cannot see
A flown survey records the visible condition of everything that can be seen from the air, on the day, in that day's light and weather. That covers far more than most people expect: slipped and cracked slates, open mortar joints, lifted flashings, blocked valleys, moss build up, failed pointing on a stack, ponding on a flat section, and the state of every ridge and hip.
It does not see through a covering. Rot in a rafter, a failed underlay, or a batten that has gone soft cannot be reported on from above, and neither can anything hidden under standing water, deep moss or snow. Where something needs opening up to be certain, the report says that plainly instead of guessing.
That boundary is worth being clear about before you book, because a survey that oversells what it can see is worse than no survey at all.
Why the resolution matters
There is a real difference between a photograph of a roof and a photograph you can work from. At 100 megapixels a single frame of one elevation can be cropped down to a hairline crack in one slate and still hold together on screen.
That matters for two reasons. It means the aircraft can stay at a sensible standoff distance from the building and still return usable detail, which is safer and far less intrusive for the neighbours. And it means the roofer quoting the repair is looking at real evidence rather than a description of it.
When thermal gets added
Most surveys do not need thermal. Where there is an active leak that nobody can trace, or a flat roof that may be holding water inside the build up, the second aircraft goes up with a radiometric thermal camera.
Water and the materials around it hold and release heat differently from dry ones, so a wet patch under a covering often shows as a temperature difference hours before it shows as a stain on a ceiling. It is not a magic wand and it needs the right conditions to work, but on the right job it turns weeks of guessing into an afternoon.
On the day
How a the standard survey runs
- Step 1
Site check
Address checked for airspace restrictions and a lawful take off point before the booking is confirmed, so nothing gets discovered on the day.
- Step 2
Walk round
Ten minutes on the ground first. Where the water is going, what the ground floor is telling you, and anything the owner has already noticed inside.
- Step 3
The flight
A methodical pass round each elevation, then close work on the details. Half an hour to an hour on a typical house.
- Step 4
The report
Images sorted, defects marked up, findings written in plain words with a note on urgency. In your inbox within 48 hours.
Behind the work
Kit, cover and qualifications
CAA registered
Operator ID and Flyer ID held, plus the A2 Certificate of Competency. Every flight is planned to the rules that apply to the site, and the paperwork is available before the visit if your agent or insurer wants it.
100 megapixel camera
A DJI Mavic 4 Pro with a Hasselblad camera and 6K video. The resolution is what lets a survey stand off the building at a safe distance and still show a hairline crack in a single slate.
Radiometric thermal
A DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced carrying a 640 by 512 thermal camera. Used where a leak needs tracing rather than just photographing, because water shows as temperature long before it shows as a stain.
Insured with Coverdrone
Full commercial cover for the operation. Certificates go to managing agents, block committees and insurers as a matter of course, without anyone having to chase for them.
The standard survey
Drone Roof Survey questions
- Can you survey just one elevation or one chimney?
- Yes, and it is a common request when somebody already knows roughly where the problem is. It is still worth covering the rest while the aircraft is up, because the thing that is leaking is often not the thing you noticed.
- Do you fly over neighbouring properties?
- The flight is planned around the property being surveyed and the imagery is of that property. Where a shared roof or a party wall means a neighbour's slope is unavoidably in frame, that is discussed first.
- What about a thatched roof?
- Thatch surveys well from the air, particularly the ridge, which is the part nobody can inspect without scaffolding and the part that fails first. The imagery shows wear along the ridge, netting condition and any vermin damage.
Where
Drone Roof Survey across the South West
Also on this site
Get it looked at
Book a roof survey with Drone Roof Survey
Tell us the address and what you need looking at. Sam Hembury will come back with a fixed price and the next available slot.