Who turns up
Someone who has stood on the other side of a snagging list
Why a builder ended up flying the survey
The background is construction rather than photography, and on a new build that turns out to matter more than it does anywhere else in this business. Knowing what a ridge bedding joint should look like when it has been done properly, or what a first fix roofline should look like before the render goes over it, is the difference between a folder of aerial photographs and a report that tells a builder exactly what was missed.
The work grew out of Hembury Contracting, a Devon contracting business, where the same conversation kept coming up on site: a homeowner certain something had been rushed, a site manager certain it had not, and no photograph either side could point to. An aircraft with a serious camera on it settled that argument with evidence instead of opinion, and it has been the job ever since.
Everything is flown from Exeter, which puts most of Devon inside an hour and the wider South West inside two. New build estates are the specific patch, because a defects period has a closing date and the survey only earns its place if it can be booked, flown and written up before that date arrives.
On the record
Registrations, kit and cover
CAA registered
Operator ID and Flyer ID held, plus the A2 Certificate of Competency. The paperwork goes over with the quote, ready for a site manager's file if one is needed before access is agreed.
100 megapixel camera
A DJI Mavic 4 Pro with a Hasselblad camera and 6K video. The resolution is what lets a single frame be cropped into a mortar joint on a ridge tile or a hairline crack in fresh render without the image falling apart.
Radiometric thermal
A DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced carrying a 640 by 512 thermal camera. Used where a flat roof section may be holding water under the membrane, which shows as a temperature difference well before it shows as a stain on a ceiling below.
Insured with Coverdrone
Full commercial cover for the operation. A certificate goes to a site manager, a warranty provider or a snagging company as a matter of course, without anyone having to chase for it.
DJI Mavic 4 Pro
100 megapixel Hasselblad camera and 6K video. Resolution enough to crop into a single ridge tile bedding joint or a hairline render crack without the image falling apart.
DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced
640 by 512 radiometric thermal camera alongside the visual one. Useful where a flat roof section may be holding water under the membrane before it shows as a stain inside.
How we work
Three things this business will not do
Invent a defect
If a roof and the upper elevations are in reasonable order the report says so. There is no repair work being sold on the back of a survey, so there is nothing to gain from making a sound job sound worse than it is.
Quote your warranty terms back at you
NHBC and every other new build warranty provider write their own defects period and cover in their own documents, and they differ. The report tells you what is on the roof, not what your specific policy obliges the builder to fix. Check your own documents, or ask whoever issued them.
Fly a job that will not produce usable evidence
Wrong wind, wrong light, wrong airspace: the survey moves. A defects list backed by blurred or shadow-heavy photographs is weaker than no photograph at all, so a flight taken in poor conditions gets rescheduled rather than charged for.
How the evidence works
Book a snagging survey with New Build Drone Survey
Tell us the address and what you need looking at. Sam Hembury will come back with a fixed price and the next available slot.