Exterior Residential & Commercial  Inspections

Some advantages of using Flightfield Drone Services, LLC on your next exterior  inspection are safety, efficiency, accessibility, and an overall satisfaction of knowing and seeing the condition of your subjects exterior.  Our pilot is a Certified Professional Home Inspector (C.P.I) and has been in the heavy construction industry the majority of his life.  Besides the C.P.I. designation, our pilot is a sUAS Level 1 Thermographer through Infrared Training Center. The world leader in infrared thermography training. Our pilot is also Infrared Certified through InterNACHI. The world’s leading association for home inspectors. This training in conjunction with the Level 1 Top Operator Certification through AUVSI and DartDrones, training in Aerial Inspections from DartDrones, and much more, means Flightfield Drone Services, LLC is your safest, and best choice for aerial inspections.

When Flightfield Drone Services, LLC’s drones are used for exterior home inspections, they get the inspector up close to the building's envelope and into spots you may not be able to see with binoculars or ladders. Not only does this save wear on your roofing material but walking on the roof is one of the most dangerous parts of a home inspection.  Some roofs can be too high, steep, or inaccessible. Other roofs may have tiles made of clay, slate, concrete or various other materials that make walking on them dangerous. Inspectors are NOT required to step foot on a roof. Because of this some inspectors will use binoculars or look from a ladder. A more complex roof design will have more areas prone to problems which may be lurking out of site from a ladder or the ground. If our inspector deems that the roof may not be safe to walk, the roof inspection will be completed with a drone. With this birds eye view of your home, you will be provided with high resolution photos and video of the existing roof conditions. We will do everything we can to ensure you get the best inspection possible. You will be able to see for yourself the difference FDS makes when the inspection report is in your hands. Sure, we could note that we couldn't see all of the envelope due to restrictions. Or, we could provide you with the best report and service around. We choose the latter. The exterior of your home is your first defense from mother nature. It only takes one window flashing to be defective, or missing and your wall could be severely impacted. With all the benefits, there are some limitations when using a drone for an eexterior inspection. For example, trees next to a home may have a canopy that reaches over the top of the roof.  Not only will this prove to be a hindrance when collecting the requested data, it may actually be shortening the life of  your roofing material.

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Getting ready to start a project?

Have Flightfield Drone Services, LLC fly a Baseline Aerial Inspection for monitoring projects over a long period of time.  Have us fly a roof immediately after a new installation and receive your own photo or video documentation as to the condition. An installation warranty usually lasts 2 years.  In this scenario, we would come back in approximately 23 months after the installation. A second aerial roof inspection would be conducted to verify the condition of the roof before any defect becomes an out of pocket expense. This type of Baseline Aerial Inspection can be in RGB or thermal and prove invaluable. These types of inspections can be used for all types of outdoor projects and not limited to exterior residential or commercial roof inspections.

If you are interested in Flightfield Drone Services, LLC’s Residential or Commercial Exterior Inspections click the link below to "See Your World Differently.” 

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A thermal camera works by detecting and measuring the infrared radiation that ALL objects emit. All objects that have a temperature over absolute zero (-273.15°C or -459.67°F) give off thermal radiation. Since the temperature of absolute zero is physically impossible, all objects give off thermal radiation, even you.

A Thermographer? Why do I need one?

When using a thermal camera there are many things to consider. It is very important that a person operating a thermal camera for the use of inspection is trained in thermography and have a understanding of building construction. You might think that you can buy a camera and “point and shoot” to perform your own inspection. That may do more harm than good. As stated above, all materials emit thermal radiation. Did you know they can also reflect another objects radiation?

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The thermal cameras used by Flightfield Drone Services, LLC do not see through clothing, walls, or even windows. Really, thermal cameras do not see through anything at all. A thermal camera detects the surface temperature of the first object in its line of site. If you were to point a thermal camera at a wall with a hot wire behind it, you will see the heat that is being transferred through the wall by convection or conduction. If the wire recently became hot, it may not have heated the wall enough to get a good temperature difference. Therefore, the thermal camera would not detect it.

Thermal cameras detect the objects radiation and converts it into electronic signals. It then takes this data and converts it into a color map of different temperature values. This “rainbow” colored palette is what you will typically see on T.V. and in movies. In movies, the good guys are using thermal scopes to look through walls to find the bad guys. In the real world, this is not the case. Our thermal cameras have the ability to take the thermal photo and an RGB photo at the same for side-by-side comparison. This makes deciphering images for clients very easy, and helps them to understand what the thermographer is seeing.

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Exterior Thermal Inspections

A thermal inspection of the exterior of your home or commercial building is a great way to find defects hidden from the naked eye. If you choose to have an external thermal inspection completed, there are a few things to know. A couple of these being that some materials are not great emitters of radiation. Therefore, a thermal sensor cannot give you the data you are after.  Another is, in order to get good data there needs to be a large enough difference in ambient temperature between the outdoor and indoor temperatures of the structure. This temperature difference, known as DeltaT, and the fact some materials lack the ability to emit radiation well, are two critical components to collecting quality thermal data. When conducting a thermal inspection of a structure, there is an option to have your crew or specialists monitor the flight in real time on a HDMI compatible device. With crews or specialists viewing the flight in real time they can work with our pilot to get the exact shots they need. 

          If you are interested in our exterior thermal inspections and would like to "See Your World Differently," click the tab below to request a free consultation.      

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