Inspection

Whether you own a residential or commercial property, it’s important to know what kind of wear and tear your roof has sustained and look for signs of adverse issues that could arise down the road.  

Some reasons you may need a roof inspection include:   

• Warranty protection: Many warranty agreements require property owners to perform a roof inspection on a set basis for the warranty to remain in effect. 
• Check for weathering: Weather damage is a tricky thing. On a day-to-day basis, you may not notice many changes. However, the quality of your roof will slowly deteriorate if it isn't properly maintained. An inspection can help you to spot problem areas early and do course-corrective repairs before you need to pay a larger bill. 
• Leak assessment: There’s nothing worse than a leaking roof. Simple as that. 
• Drainage issues: Few roof-related problems can be as devastating as clogged drains. If left unchecked for extended periods, these can cause buildups of water that eventually begin to leak through the ceiling and cause damage property-wide. A roof inspection can spot pile-ups of leaves and debris in your gutters and help prevent an issue down the road.
• Maintenance damage: While you would always assume that the contractors you hire for other jobs, such as replacing tiles or clearing drains, wouldn’t create new problems, this expectation doesn’t always match reality. If damage goes unreported, whether intentionally or simply because the contractor was unaware of an issue, it can cause major problems in the future. 
• Solar panel installation: Adding solar panels to your property can provide you an in-house energy source that not only helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions but can also provide major savings in the long term. There are, however, several requirements your building will have to meet to be eligible for solar panel installation - such as local and state ordinances. Your roof is a big part of the equation, as it will need to be sturdy, clean, sloped in the correct direction and large enough to carry enough solar panels to make the investment worth your while. A roof inspection can help clarify each of these points so you can make an informed decision. 
• Pre-emptive checks: Just because you don’t have reason to believe your property has taken on new damage doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea to check. Regular inspections, even beyond those required by your warranty, can help you spot weathering patterns and make appropriate fixes before a problem even emerges. 

No matter how much of a professional you are, human error is inevitable — it happens to the best of us! Using proper surveying techniques, a drone can create accurately scaled images and keep results consistent across an entire project. This is especially true if you’re working with a drone that can automate flight paths (more on that later), as this takes yet another potential area of human error out of the equation. 

Quite simply, with the aid of a drone, roof inspections (and site inspections overall) just don’t take as long. In the past, roof inspectors needed to make measurements from the ground and then find a way to climb up to the roof to finish the job. Now, with the aid of a UAV, inspectors stay in one place, run as few as a single flight route, and let stitching software do the rest. The result? 2D or 3D models in record time.  For contractors, an enterprise drone opens up the ability to work on more projects in a day than ever before. For property owners, it removes a lot of the hassle of regular roof inspections.

The point of a roof inspection is to increase the safety of your building. The last thing you want is for someone on your team to get hurt during the inspection process. With UAV aerial photography, you can take images from vantage points that humans can’t safely reach. Taking images of the top of a chimney, for example, is far safer from the confines of the ground than standing on a ladder or on top of a building. Using a drone for some or all of your roof inspections can help to reduce the level of risk associated with your project.

While frugal business owners may be concerned about the initial price of a drone, the case for a strong ROI is still clear-cut. By utilizing drone technology a contractor can cut down on labor costs (and potential insurance payouts for injured workers) as well as take on more inspection jobs than is possible without drone assistance.