Drone Roof Survey
The whole roof photographed at 100 megapixels, elevation by elevation, written up and with you inside 48 hours, no scaffold required.
The standard surveyDevon and the South West
See your roof properly, without a ladder anywhere near it
A flown survey of the whole roof at 100 megapixels, then a written report in your inbox within 48 hours showing what is wrong, where it is and how urgent it looks.
- No scaffolding, no tower, no ladders against the gutter
- Fixed price agreed before the visit
- Written report and full-resolution photographs within 48 hours
- CAA registered and insured for commercial work
The actual problem
Nobody has looked at your roof, including the last person who said they had
Roofs get looked at from the pavement. Someone stands at the gate, tips their head back, and forms a view about a surface they can see perhaps a third of. The other two thirds, the valleys, the far slope, the back of the stack, the flat bit over the extension, are all taken on trust.
That is fine until water arrives inside. Then everybody is guessing, the first roofer says one thing and the second says another, and the only way to settle it has traditionally been to spend a few thousand pounds putting up a scaffold before anyone has established whether there is anything wrong.
A flown survey removes the guessing without the scaffold. The aircraft goes where a person cannot safely go, photographs the lot at a resolution you can crop into, and you end up with a document rather than an opinion.
What we fly
Three jobs, one aircraft, one report format
The flying is much the same each time. What changes is who is reading the report at the end and what decision it has to support.
Roof Survey Before You Buy
A flown survey between offer and exchange, so a roof you have only seen from the pavement stops being an unknown before you commit to buying it.
Before you buy
Landlord and Managing Agent Roof Surveys
Scheduled roof surveys across a portfolio or a block, with one written report per address and a consistent record kept year on year.
Portfolios and blocksCredentials
What sits behind the survey
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.
What you get
A report you can hand to a roofer without translating it first
The flight is the easy part. The value is in what lands in your inbox 48 hours later.
- An overview image of each elevation, so the roof can be read as a whole
- Close annotated images of anything found, with a note on where it is
- A plain description of each item and how urgent it looks
- Ridges, hips, verges, valleys, flashings, stacks and gutters covered as standard
- The full resolution originals, so your roofer can zoom in for themselves
- A clear note on anything that could not be assessed and why
What it looks like
The things a survey finds, and nobody sees from the ground
None of these are dramatic on the day they start. All of them are expensive eighteen months later.
Where we fly
Devon first, then as far as the South West goes
Every town below has its own page, written around the roofs and the weather that town actually gets rather than the same paragraph with the name changed.
Questions
Questions we get asked
- How long does a roof survey take on site?
- For a typical house, half an hour to an hour in the air, plus a short walk round first to look at the ground level and work out where to fly from. Larger properties, terraces and blocks take longer because there is more roof and more sides to cover.
- Do I need to be there?
- No. Plenty of surveys are flown for landlords and agents with nobody on site. All that is needed is somewhere lawful to take off and land, and permission to be there. If you want to be present and watch the screen, that is welcome too.
- What if the weather turns?
- The flight moves. Rain on the lens ruins the imagery and strong wind ruins the stability, so a survey flown in bad conditions is not worth having. Rescheduling for weather costs nothing and is treated as normal rather than as a cancellation.
- Can you fly in a terrace or a town centre?
- Usually yes. The A2 Certificate of Competency covers flying closer to buildings and people than the basic category allows, which is what makes tight streets workable. Some sites are restricted by airspace or by what is directly below, and that is checked before the booking is confirmed rather than on the day.
- What do I actually get at the end?
- A written report within 48 hours, with annotated photographs, an overview of each elevation, a list of what was found with a note on how urgent each item looks, and the full resolution images so your roofer can zoom in themselves.
- Is the report enough for an insurance claim?
- It gives an insurer dated, photographed evidence of the condition on the day it was flown, which is usually what they ask for first. It is not a loss adjuster's assessment and does not price the repair, and the report says so rather than implying otherwise.
- Will you tell me what it costs to fix?
- The report describes what was found and how serious it looks. Pricing the repair is the roofer's job, and the photographs are there so they can quote from real evidence rather than from a ladder and a guess.
- How much does a survey cost?
- It is a fixed price per survey, agreed before the visit, based on the address and the size of the roof. Send the address and what you want looking at and you get the figure back rather than a range.
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.