Drone inspection services in Taunton

Taunton carries a great deal of commercial property: business parks at Blackbrook and towards junction 25, the older industrial ground at Priorswood, retail parks, a substantial office stock, and a large public estate including hospital and education buildings. A lot of it is flat roofed, in single-ply or felt over concrete or metal deck.

Flat roofs on this scale are a specific maintenance discipline. They fail at seams, upstands, terminations and outlets rather than in the field, they hold water where the falls were marginal, and every item of plant standing on them is a penetration and a wear point. The bigger the roof, the more of those there are and the less likely anybody is to have walked all of it.

The public estate buildings are usually the most interesting. Long, low, flat roofed, extended repeatedly, with plant added at each extension and drawings that stopped being accurate two refurbishments ago.

The town sits on the flat floor of the Vale of Taunton Deane, sheltered by hills on most sides and drier than Devon, but low-lying and prone to holding fog and frost. The surrounding hills produce localised gusting in storms, which is a different pattern to steady exposure.

Drier weather is good news for a flat roof, but the frost is not. Water sitting in a ponding area freezes, and freeze and thaw cycling works at seams and at any small defect far faster than standing water alone would. A ponding area with a tide mark is worth recording precisely so its size can be compared next year.

The localised gusting matters for anything mechanically fixed at a perimeter or for loose-laid ballasted systems, where a storm can move ballast and expose membrane in a way that is invisible from the ground and obvious from above.

The volume of stock and the concentration of it make this the easiest town on the list to run as a programme. Several buildings on the same park can be recorded in a day, and a portfolio spread across the town still fits into one visit.

For a service charge regime that produces something worth having: a comparable, dated record for every building, issued before the budget is set, that a tenant can be shown if a charge is queried.

The town also holds a large and growing edge-of-town retail and leisure estate, and those buildings share a pattern worth naming. Big flat or shallow roofs, substantial plant, extensive rooflight area, and a tenant mix that changes every few years with fit-out works each time. Every fit-out is an opportunity for a penetration to be cut, a duct to be added or an existing detail to be disturbed, and almost none of those changes are recorded anywhere the landlord can find them later.