Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones as they are more commonly referred to, have made a significant and positive impact in various industries from real estate, to construction, to energy. They have all but eliminated the need to put people in dangerous situations and have proven time and time again they can save time and money.
One of the best examples of this is with drone roof inspections. In this article, we’ll look at why you should inspect your roof in the first place and the benefits of using drones to do so. We’ll also look at the steps necessary to conduct a high quality successful inspection of a roof and the costs associated with various types of drone inspections.
Detail of a gable from a roof inspection.
Why Do Roof Inspections In the First Place?
Let’s talk about some of the primary reasons why you should perform an inspection of a roof, and why they are important.
Real Estate Appraisals
Roof Repair Estimation
Insurance Adjuster Claims
Solar Panel Installation and Maintenance
Regular Home Maintenance (gutter, shingles, tuckpointing, etc.)
Why Use Drones for Roof Inspections?
Let me start by saying, there is no substitute for an actual trained professional’s eyes, ears, and or hands when it comes to conducting the inspection of a roof structure’s damaged areas, or vital building components. If you’re a homeowner, pulling the ladder out of the garage may seem like the easiest way to go about inspecting the roof of your home—but, it isn’t.
These traditional methods of inspecting a roof are antiquated, inefficient, and more importantly just plain dangerous. Drones or UAVs are absolutely better for performing roof inspections; let’s look at all the reasons backing up this statement.
SAFETY
The fact that drones enable an individual to perform a roof inspection while remaining safely on the ground may be the single greatest advantage of their use. More than 300 people die each year in the United States falling from ladders, and over 150k ladder-related injuries are treated in the emergency room. The use of drones all but eliminates this risk entirely.
EFFICIENCY
Industry studies show utilizing UAVs for inspecting a roof can cut the inspection time down [on average] from three hours to one. For a roofing estimator or an insurance adjuster, this can prove invaluable allowing them to inspect far more properties in a single day with a higher degree of accuracy.
ACCESSIBILITY
It goes without saying that there are some buildings and homes with roofs that are either inaccessible or simply too daunting to just pull out the ladder. A drone-based roof inspection performed by a skilled pilot can yield images a person would never be able to access. Can you really picture yourself atop that fourth-story gable with a tape measure and a camera, holding onto a ladder; or dangling under an overhang?
MANPOWER
Compared to a team of people with ropes and tape measures, generally a single individual is required to inspect a roof. For larger commercial properties a drone pilot may bring along additional VOs (visual observers) to aid in maintaining LOS (line of sight) during the data collection process. Even in this instance, a two-man crew would be completely done before a traditional team even accessed the roof.
CLOUD-BASED 3D MODELING
Aside from the enhanced safety and data collection benefits already mentioned, using drones to inspect roofs allows you to fly what is called a “Drone Mapping Mission” using flight automation software. The images captured during these types of flights can be imported into inspection software like Pix4D to render high-resolution 3D models that can be accessed via the cloud making valuable data available in seconds, and provide far more detailed roof reports than some notes on a piece of paper and a crude drawing.
To learn more about drone mapping services, check out our articles; “What Is Drone Mapping Used For?” and “What Is Photogrammetry? (Answered In Under 100 Words)”.
Drone Pilot Christopher Kabat performing a pre-flight tasks before a roof inspection.
Steps for Conducting A Successful Roof Inspection
DEFINE MISSION OBJECTIVE & DELIVERABLES
Assess what and how you plan on assessing the data in the images captured before anything else, as this will determine the type of flight mission to conduct. Inspecting the tuck-pointing of a chimney would require a different type of flight than an overall orthomosaic image of a large commercial warehouse.
FLIGHT PLANNING
As we mentioned planning for the type of flight is important, but so is the typical pre-flight planning needed for any drone flight. Here we’ll want to consider the size of the overall flight area, how many flight missions it will take to completely capture the necessary images, ground sampling distance (for mapping flights), airspace restrictions, and we can’t forget the weather.
DRONE TECHNOLOGY
For a basic roof inspection of a residential home, most any drone is capable of capturing high enough resolution images to see damage or debris. The choice of professionals, however, is typically a drone with some degree of flight automation, possibly some obstacle avoidance capability, and for mapping missions an image sensor (the camera) with a “global” shutter. This allows for the image to be captured all at once as opposed to progressively as with a CMOS or “rolling” shutter.
Drone Roof Inspection Cost Estimates
INDIVIDUAL HOMEOWNERS
For a roof inspection of an individual property, pricing will vary based on the square footage, the number of stories, and the desired deliverable. You might expect a drone pilot to charge anywhere from .10–.15 cents per square foot for a standard image capture roof inspection for properties up to roughly 2000sq/ft. For a mapping mission of the same property, similar rates would apply with the addition of the output (be it a 3D model or an orthomosaic map), which could range from sever hundred to thousands of dollars.
RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITY PROPERTY OWNERS & MANAGERS
For multi-unit residential apartment complexes or townhouse units, again pricing will vary based on the square footage, the number of stories, and the requested deliverable. As these properties may have multiple independent roof structures and tend to occupy a larger piece of land, you should expect slightly better rates than for a single home inspection, somewhere in the neighborhood of .05¢ per square foot, and possibly higher for more difficult flight areas like those that are heavily forested.
COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROPERTIES & FACILITIES
Pricing here is similar to the previously mentioned rates, though commercial and industrial properties generally require a higher level of insurance as there are increased risks involved. You might expect to see rates ranging from .05–.10 cents per square foot, or higher for higher-risk locations.
To wrap it all up, it is clear to see why roof inspections are a great way to stay ahead of potential issues, and if we did our job with this article, you should too see that using drones is the best way to accomplish those projects. Whether it be to look for loose shingles, a clogged gutter, or to generate an interactive 3D model—nothing beats the safety, speed, convenience, and cost-effectiveness of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV or drone).
ProAerial Media provides aerial drone services for a wide array of industries across the southwest United States. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel to see our video work, and our Instagram feed to view our photography (@proaerialmedia). If you’re ready to fly, you can always book a flight from the ProAerial Media Website.
Thanks for reading. Take Flight. Take Pics. Get Clicks.
To learn more about the author and PAM owner Christopher Kabat, check out his “Meet the Pilot” article.