Who turns up
A construction background, and a way in that does not need a scaffold
Why access is the starting point, not an afterthought
The background is construction rather than photography, which is the reason access was the first problem worth solving rather than the last. Hembury Contracting, a Devon contracting business, ran into the same wall again and again: a roof needed looking at, and the cost of finding out was frequently the cost of a scaffold rather than the cost of the work itself, on a job that had not even been confirmed yet.
That is a bad trade for a homeowner and a worse one for a landlord managing several properties. Somewhere between that repeated problem and a drone with a serious camera on it, the access problem stopped being unavoidable.
The point is not that a drone replaces a roofer's judgement, it does not. It replaces the ladder and the tower as the way of finding out what a roofer's judgement is needed for, so the cost of looking stops being disproportionate to the size of the actual problem.
Everything is flown from Exeter, which puts most of Devon inside an hour and east Cornwall not much further. The South West is the patch because it is home, and because its narrow streets, steep hillside towns and exposed coastal fronts are exactly the kind of access problem this service exists for.
On the record
Registrations, kit and cover
Nothing put up against the house
No scaffold tower, no ladder against the gutter, no base plate on the drive. The aircraft holds a standoff distance from the building for the whole inspection.
CAA registered
Operator ID and Flyer ID held, plus the A2 Certificate of Competency, which is what allows the closer operation near buildings and streets that makes this work in a terrace or a town centre.
100 megapixel camera
A DJI Mavic 4 Pro with a Hasselblad camera and 6K video. The resolution is what lets the aircraft stay at a safe distance and still return detail close to what a person standing on the roof would see.
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.
DJI Mavic 4 Pro
100 megapixel Hasselblad camera and 6K video. Enough resolution to stay at a safe standoff distance from the building and still return detail close to what a person standing on the roof would see.
DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced
640 by 512 radiometric thermal camera alongside the visual one. Used where a leak needs tracing rather than just photographing, without anyone needing to get onto the roof to look for it.
How we work
Three things this business will not do
Invent urgency
If a roof is in reasonable order the report says so plainly. There is no repair work being sold off the back of an inspection, so there is nothing to gain from making a sound roof sound worrying.
Claim to reach what it cannot
An inspection shows the visible condition from the air, on the day, in that day's light. Anything that would need lifting a tile or a physical check to confirm is written up as needing that, not quietly assumed either way.
Fly a job that will not work
Wrong wind, wrong light, wrong airspace, or a site where a lawful launch point cannot be found: the visit moves or is turned down rather than flown badly and charged for regardless.
See how it works
Book an inspection with Drone Roof Inspection
Tell us the address and what you need looking at. Sam Hembury will come back with a fixed price and the next available slot.