Roof and building inspection
The main job: every slope, elevation, stack and gutter photographed close enough to make a decision on, without anything touching the building.
Roof and building
Exeter, Devon and the South West
You are hiring a surveyor, not a drone
Sam Hembury flies every job on this site himself, out of Exeter. Registered with the CAA, holding an A2 Certificate of Competency, insured with Coverdrone. What he holds, what he flies and where he covers is all set out below, so you can check it before you pick up the phone.
- CAA registered operator, Operator ID and Flyer ID held
- A2 Certificate of Competency, no GVC, and the site says so
- Coverdrone commercial insurance, certificate on request
- The same person quotes the job, flies it and writes it up
Why this page exists
Three quotes, three websites, and no idea who is actually coming
Most drone survey websites are written about the drone. You get a picture of an aircraft against a sunset, a list of things it can see, and a form. What you do not get is the one thing that decides whether the job is any good: the name of the person who will fly it, what they are qualified to do, and who insures them if it goes into a conservatory.
That gap matters more than it looks. Anyone can buy a capable aircraft in an afternoon. The Civil Aviation Authority requires the operator to be registered, and there are recognised qualifications above that basic registration, but nothing stops a website from being vague about which of them a firm actually holds. If you are instructing on someone else's behalf, vague is the thing that comes back on you.
So this site is written the other way round. The aircraft are near the bottom. The person, the registrations, the certificate that is held, the one that is not, the insurer and the way a job runs are near the top, in plain words, in a form you can check or forward to whoever asked you to look into it.
The work
The kinds of job actually flown
Three, and no more than three. A surveyor who lists twelve services is describing a market rather than a week of work.
Thermal inspection
The radiometric camera on the Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced, used where the question is heat, damp or trapped moisture rather than what a covering looks like.
Thermal
Mapping, records and search
Everything flown over an area rather than a building: mapping runs, dated site records, aerial photography, and searching open ground when something is missing.
Mapping and recordsCredentials
What sits behind the survey
Registered with the CAA
A registered operator with both an Operator ID and a Flyer ID. The Operator ID is the one that has to be displayed on the aircraft, and it is the number a client or an insurer asks for.
A2 Certificate of Competency
The A2 CofC is the theory and self-practical qualification that sits above the basic Flyer ID test. There is no GVC, which is stated here rather than left out, because it changes how some sites have to be planned.
Insured with Coverdrone
Commercial cover through Coverdrone, one of the specialist drone insurers. A copy of the certificate goes out on request before a booking, not after it.
DJI Mavic 4 Pro
The main survey aircraft. A 100 megapixel Hasselblad camera and 6K video, which is what lets a photograph of a ridge from twenty metres away still show an open mortar joint.
DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced
The thermal aircraft. A 640 by 512 radiometric thermal camera alongside the visual one, so a heat pattern can be read against the picture of the same elevation.
Construction background
The surveying came after years of contracting, so the report is written by somebody who has stood on the scaffold as well as flown over it, and who knows which faults matter and which are cosmetic.
Written report within 48 hours
A process commitment, not a sales promise. The flight is the short part of the job; the report is where the time goes, and it lands within two days of the visit.
No scaffolding, no ladders
Nothing leans on the building and nobody goes up it. That removes the access cost, the permit paperwork and the working-at-height risk from the survey itself.
The deliverable
What lands in your inbox two days later
The flight is the short part. Most of the job is the reading and the writing afterwards, which is where a survey either earns its fee or does not.
- High resolution photographs of every elevation and roof slope, in a sensible order
- Close detail frames of anything that needs looking at, taken from a metre or two away
- A written note against each one saying what it is and whether it matters
- A short summary at the front for whoever only reads the first page
- Thermal imagery alongside the visual frames where the job called for it
- A plain statement of anything that could not be seen, and why
- The original full resolution files, yours to send to a roofer, an agent or an insurer
What the camera brings back
The level of detail a survey works at
Four frames of the sort that end up in a report. None of these is a landscape photograph. Each one exists because something on it needed a decision.
Coverage
Who covers your area
Devon and the wider South West, out of Exeter, with travel inside the fixed price. Each town page sets out what a flight there actually involves and roughly what the drive looks like.
Questions
Questions we get asked
- Who actually turns up on the day?
- Sam Hembury. He quotes the job, flies it and writes the report. There is no pool of subcontracted pilots behind this and no office booking somebody else into your slot, which is the whole reason this site exists.
- What qualifications does a drone surveyor need in the UK?
- At a minimum the operator has to be registered with the Civil Aviation Authority, holding an Operator ID for the aircraft and a Flyer ID for the person flying it. Beyond that, an A2 Certificate of Competency is the qualification most commercial operators hold, and a General VLOS Certificate sits above it for work that needs an operational authorisation. Ask which of those a firm holds before you book.
- Do you hold a GVC?
- No. The certificate held here is the A2 CofC. That is set out plainly because it affects how a small number of sites have to be planned, and you are better off knowing before the visit than after it. The page on what the permissions mean explains where the line falls.
- Can I see the insurance certificate before I book?
- Yes, and it is worth asking every firm you speak to. The cover is commercial drone insurance through Coverdrone, and the certificate is sent by email on request rather than produced afterwards if something goes wrong.
- What aircraft do you fly?
- A DJI Mavic 4 Pro with a 100 megapixel Hasselblad camera for the survey work, and a DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced with a 640 by 512 radiometric thermal camera when heat or damp is the question. Both are flown by the same person.
- Do you need permission from my neighbours?
- Not their permission as such, but their proximity matters. Flights are planned around people and property that are not under your control, and on tight sites that shapes where the aircraft can be flown from and how close it can get. If a site cannot be flown safely within the rules, you get told that rather than a flight that should not have happened.
- How far will you travel?
- Devon and the wider South West, out of Exeter. Travel is inside the fixed price for the job, so a farm on the Exmoor edge is quoted the same way as a house in Topsham. The areas pages set out roughly what the drive looks like from Exeter to each town.
- What happens if the weather stops the flight?
- It gets rescheduled at no cost. Wind, heavy rain, poor light and airspace restrictions all stop flights, and pushing a survey out in marginal conditions produces photographs that are not worth having. Rescheduling for weather is normal and is not treated as a cancellation.
- What does it cost?
- A fixed price per survey, agreed before the visit once the address and the scope are known. Travel is in it. Any figure discussed before the address is known would be a guess, so the quote comes after you describe the job rather than before.
- Is a drone survey the same as a structural survey?
- No. This records the visible condition of what can be seen from the air on the day, and says what it suggests. It is not a RICS building survey, a structural engineer's report or an insurance assessment. Where something needs opening up or testing by another trade, the report says so instead of guessing.
Elsewhere
If this is not quite the job you have
These are separate sites we also run, each set up for a different problem. Follow whichever one matches what you actually need.
Thermal Drone SurveyIf what you actually need is the thermal camera rather than a general look at a building, that site sets out what radiometric thermal imaging can and cannot show you, and when in the year it is worth flying.Drone Survey CompanyIf you are comparing firms on paper for a commercial building or a managed portfolio, that site is built around comparing quotes fairly rather than around the surveyor.Drone Roof SurveyIf it is one house roof and you already know what you want looking at, that site is the plainer domestic version and gets you to a price faster.
See the credentials
Talk to a surveyor with Drone Surveyors
Tell us the address and what you need looking at. Sam Hembury will come back with a fixed price and the next available slot.