Drone roof inspection in Dartmouth

Dartmouth is built on ground so steep that a number of its streets become stairs, narrow, stepped alleys with no vehicle access at all. A scaffold delivery depends on a lorry getting close enough to unload, and on these stretches of town that is simply not possible, not slow, not expensive, not possible. Any roof check on a property reached only by steps has traditionally meant carrying equipment up by hand, which turns a routine inspection into a significant undertaking before anyone has even looked at a tile.

None of that applies to a drone. It launches from wherever there is a clear patch, the harbour front, a car park, a wider road further down the hill, and flies to the roof from there, regardless of how the property itself is reached on foot. For a house on one of Dartmouth's stepped lanes, that is not a convenience, it is often the difference between the roof getting looked at properly and not being checked at all.

Bayards Cove and the Butterwalk hold an exceptional run of timber framed, jettied merchant houses, where upper floors project out over the street exactly as they do in Totnes, and for the same reason a ladder cannot be relied on to reach the roof edge safely. These are also some of the most heavily protected buildings in the town, and fixing anything to a listed timber frame is not a decision any contractor takes lightly, or quickly.

A drone flight avoids the frame entirely. It moves round the jetty, holds off the projecting upper storey and photographs the roof edge, the ridge and the chimney stacks from open air rather than from a ladder that was never going to reach the right spot anyway. The A2 Certificate of Competency and Coverdrone commercial insurance behind every flight matter more here than almost anywhere else in the network, given how much of Dartmouth's historic core is listed.

The steep, tightly stacked layout means Dartmouth's buildings often sit directly above and behind one another, so one roof frequently discharges towards its neighbour, and getting a proper look at a valley or a gutter can mean standing on next door's roof rather than your own. That is a conversation with a neighbour before it is anything else, and not every neighbour says yes.

Flying over both roofs from above removes the question completely, since nothing lands on either property. It also means the Britannia Royal Naval College's dominant position on the skyline, and the security sensitivity that comes with land near it, is respected without a physical crew needing access anywhere close to the boundary. The report still lands within 48 hours, whatever the terrain underneath has made difficult.