Roof Inspections - what's the final product?

[Meta4]

I've been approached by a client about doing a few roof inspections of mostly flat commercial building roofs.
It would be a new area for me and I haven't been able to find out much from searching so far.
What are people producing that they hand over to the client for this sort of job?
And what kind of height above the roof do you shoot?

 

[Richard R]

Haven't done a flat roof, but why not approach it like any other flat field? Give the client 2 choice: a low level video moving slowly so they can look for what ever they are concerned about on the roof, or an orthomosic picture collected low enough to provide the requested resolution. For the first, planning a mission using something like litchi. Should be able to fly low enough to get sub-inch pixels. For the second, collect images using something like Map Pilot and process in Maps Made Easy or similar. Again sub-inch pixels should be possible. The single image might be more attractive since it would be easier to keep track of where you are on the roof.

 

[ecolumbia999]

There should be three products. 1) An orthomosaic around 75 - 100ft to provide an overview. 2) A series of oblique photos with the gimbal set 30 - 40 degrees and shot at 15 - 20 ft above the roof. It is important to have these photos shot in a logical lawnmower pattern so the person analyzing the photos can determine where on the roof you are as they progress through the photos. Depending on what is on top of the roof you might have to fly this by hand as opposed to using a waypoint mission. 3) Close ups of items on the roof and/or trouble areas on the roof. For instance if there are fan units or other items on the roof provide closeups of these items from all sides. Also shoot a set of photos on the edges of the roof. If you see something obvious that needs repairing, or you think might need repairing - shoot some extra photos of these areas. I'm not suggesting you try to inspect the roof - just if something seems obvious. Also make a note to where the repairs might be needed to help them figure out where on the roof the problems areas are.

 

[With The Birds]

I asked my mate Donny the roofer. He said he would need enough to give him area and pitch as well as penetrations, vents and flashing detail and the dims of any box gutters. Something I hadn’t considered was fixing points for harnesses, WHS issues are a big part of things now.

 

[BigAl07]

It depends on what their needs are.

We do 2 types of Roof Aerials.

Homeowner - They just want detailed pictures to look for storm damage and/or degrading shingles. This is easy with MapsMadeEasy. We also do obliques to capture overhangs,gutters, downspouts.

Industrial - Same as above but include video. Also the images are flown with MME but all intrusions are noted and flown manually to get 360deg of each one.

If they are needing measurements you'll need to add a GCP to scale from as well.

 

[Ren44]

I have a roof inspection project for a home owners association. they have 128 buildings which is 520 units. a nice size project. anyone have an idea on how many hours in the field i will need to acquire the flight data? trying to budget it and dont want to over book myself.

thank in advance.