Planned inspection programme
The same route round a site or a portfolio, flown to a schedule, so this year's photographs sit next to last year's and you can see what has moved.
Planned programmeFor facilities and property teams
The parts of your building nobody has looked at since it was built
Drone inspection of commercial roofs, cladding, gutters, plant and structures across Devon and the South West. Booked as a one off or on a schedule, with photographs and a written report per asset within 48 hours.
- 01
Roof and rooftop plant
Sheets, laps and fixings, rooflights, walkways, plant frames and the flashings around every penetration.
- 02
Cladding and glazing
Panel joints, sealant, fixings and coatings on elevations nobody can see properly from ground level.
- 03
Gutters, outlets and ground level
Box gutters, outlets and downpipes, along with the eaves and parapet detail where most water problems begin.
- No scaffold, no mobile tower, no cherry picker to hire in
- Fixed price per asset, agreed before anyone comes to site
- Written report within 48 hours, per asset, ready to file
- CAA registered, A2 Certificate of Competency, insured with Coverdrone
The actual problem
Nobody has been up there, and nobody wants to be the one to go
On most commercial buildings the roof gets looked at when water comes through a ceiling tile. Not before. It is not negligence, it is arithmetic: getting a person safely onto a warehouse roof means a tower, a harness system or a cherry picker, a permit, a second person, and a morning of somebody's time. That cost is hard to justify against a hunch, so the hunch waits until it becomes a leak.
The result is that the most expensive part of the building is also the least observed part. Gutters silt up over three or four autumns until an overflow finds its way inside. A fixing works loose, a sheet lifts a few millimetres in the wind, and the water gets in somewhere nobody thinks to look. A plant frame corrodes at its feet, quietly, on a roof covering it is bolted through.
An aircraft changes the arithmetic. The camera goes where a person would need equipment to go, the building keeps working underneath, and the cost of looking drops far enough that looking regularly becomes a reasonable thing to do. That is what this site sells: not a flight, but the ability to have looked.
What you can book
Three ways to buy an inspection
A programme that repeats across a site or a portfolio, a single asset answered now, or a dated record made because somebody will rely on it later.
One off asset inspection
One roof, elevation, tower or structure looked at properly, photographed close up and written up, because something has happened or somebody has asked.
One off inspection
Pre works and handover records
A dated photographic record of a building at a fixed point in time, made because somebody is going to argue about its condition later.
Records and evidenceCredentials
What sits behind the inspection
CAA registered
A registered operator with an Operator ID and a Flyer ID held, which is the baseline any commercial client should be asking for and the first thing to check on a quote.
A2 Certificate of Competency
The A2 CofC, not a GVC. That decides how close the aircraft may legally be flown to people and property, so it decides what can be inspected and how, and it is set out plainly rather than buried.
Insured with Coverdrone
Commercial cover through Coverdrone. A certificate can be sent across for a site file or a contractor approval pack before the visit is booked.
Report within 48 hours
Photographs and a written report per asset within 48 hours of the flight, so the file is closed while the visit is still fresh in everyone's mind.
The deliverable
A report per asset, written to be read by someone who was not there
The flight is the easy part. What you are actually buying is a document that circulates: to a tenant, a contractor, a surveyor, a board paper or a service charge file.
- Every asset on the agreed list, in the order it was inspected
- Dated photographs, each one located on the building
- Detail shots of anything found, at the resolution it was captured
- A plain summary per asset, without jargon or hedging
- What looks like maintenance and what looks like it needs pricing
- Anything that could not be inspected, and the reason why
- The full resolution originals alongside the PDF, every time
What gets recorded
The things a report is actually made of
Not one flattering photograph of a building. Several hundred close ones of the parts that decide whether it stays watertight.
Where we work
Estates and commercial centres across the South West
Twenty five towns with a page each, written around what their commercial stock is actually made of rather than the same paragraph with the name changed.
Questions
Questions we get asked
- Do you need us to shut the site or move vehicles?
- Almost never. Most commercial inspections are flown from one or two positions on the ground with a small cordon around the take off point. Where the flight path crosses a live yard or a public footpath we agree a short window with you, work in it and hand the area back.
- What do you need from us before the visit?
- A site address and a contact who will be there, the assets you want covered, any permit to work or induction process we need to go through, and a note of anything on the roof we should know about, such as fragile rooflights or a lightning protection system. A method statement and risk assessment are sent over before the visit as standard.
- Can you inspect while the units are occupied?
- Yes. Nothing is leaned against the building and nobody walks the roof, so tenants keep working underneath. The usual arrangement is a short notice email to occupiers so they know what the aircraft is and why it is there.
- How close can the aircraft actually get?
- Close enough to read a fixing washer or a split in a sheet, from a standoff distance set by the A2 Certificate of Competency and the site around us. Where uninvolved people cannot be kept clear, the standoff distance goes up and the camera does more of the work. That is agreed before the visit rather than argued about on the day.
- What does the report look like?
- A written report per asset with dated photographs, each one located on the building, plus a plain summary of what was found and what it means for maintenance planning. It is a PDF, it is sized to email, and it is written to be read by someone who was not there.
- Is this a structural or building survey?
- No. It is a photographic condition record of what can be seen from the air, carried out by a drone operator with a construction background, not a chartered building surveyor. Plenty of clients use it as the evidence a surveyor, roofer or loss adjuster then works from.
- What happens if the weather stops the flight?
- The visit moves. Wind, heavy rain and poor light all affect what the camera can record, and flying anyway produces a report nobody can rely on. The visit is rebooked for the next suitable window and you are told as early in the day as the forecast allows.
- Can you cover several sites in one go?
- Yes. Sites within a sensible run of each other can share a day, and a portfolio can be put on a repeating schedule so the same assets are recorded the same way each time. Tell us the list and you get one price for the lot.
Elsewhere
If this is not quite the job you have
These are separate sites run by the same operator, each set up for a different problem. Follow whichever one matches the building you are actually dealing with.
Thermal Drone SurveyIf the question is trapped moisture under a flat roof or insulation that has slumped, a radiometric thermal reading answers it better than a visual inspection can.Roof Leak DetectionIf water is already coming into a unit and nobody can find where it starts, that site is set up for tracing the entry point rather than recording condition.Storm Damage Roof InspectionIf a building has just taken wind damage and the record is going to an insurer, that site is built around evidence for a claim while the damage is fresh.
See how a visit runs
Request a site quote with Drone Inspection Services
Tell us the site and the assets you need covered. Sam Hembury will come back with a fixed price, a method statement and a date.