New Build Drone Survey
New Build Roof and Exterior Snagging Survey
The roof and every upper elevation photographed at 100 megapixels, written up within 48 hours, so a defect goes on your list with a dated photograph attached.
A ground-level snagging inspection can walk every room, check every socket and photograph every scuffed skirting board. What it cannot do is get up onto the roof, along the top of a parapet, or level with a first floor render panel, and that is exactly where a hurried finish tends to hide.
This survey covers that gap. The aircraft works its way round the whole building at a standoff distance, covering every roof plane, ridge, verge and valley, then the upper walls, render, flashings and gutters, and the camera resolution means the images can be cropped into afterwards without falling apart.
What you are buying is not the flight. It is the report that follows it: a plain description of what is on the roof and the upper elevations, where it is, and how it looks against what a properly finished new build should look like.
What is included
- Every roof plane photographed from multiple angles, ridge to eaves
- Ridge and verge bedding, hip lines and any dry-fix components
- Flashings around soil stacks, party wall abutments and any rooflights
- Render, brickwork and pointing on every upper elevation
- Gutters, downpipes and the junctions where they meet the roof
- A written report within 48 hours with annotated images
- Full resolution originals so a site manager can zoom in for themselves
What a defect looks like from above
Some of it is obvious once it is photographed: a ridge tile sitting proud of its neighbours, a run of pointing on a verge that has not been struck properly, a gutter with an obvious sag holding standing water instead of falling to the downpipe. Photographed and dated, that stops being a homeowner's impression and becomes something a site manager has to respond to.
Some of it is subtler. A hairline crack in fresh render below a window head, a flashing that has been dressed but not properly bedded, a dry-fix ridge clip that has not engaged fully. None of these fail in the first winter. Most of them fail in the third, once the defects period has closed and the cost has moved from the builder's account to yours.
The point of flying it now, inside the window, is that the evidence exists while the builder is still obliged to look at it.
Why a builder's background changes the report
A photograph of a roof and a report written by someone who has built roofs are different documents. Knowing what a first fix looks like before the covering goes over it, and what corners actually get cut under programme pressure, means the survey is looking for the right things rather than photographing everything and hoping something useful turns up.
That matters most on volume-built estates, where the same detail gets repeated across dozens of plots by the same gang on the same day. If it was rushed on the plot next door, it is worth checking whether it was rushed on yours.
What the survey cannot tell you
It records the visible condition of the roof and the upper elevations from the air, on the day, in that day's light and weather. It does not open anything up, and it does not tell you whether a specific finding is covered under your particular warranty provider's terms. That is a question for your own paperwork, not for a drone photograph, and the report says so rather than implying a coverage answer it cannot give.
On the day
How a the snagging survey runs
- Step 1
Deadline check
The date your defects period or warranty year ends is asked for up front and the booking is planned around it, not around whatever slot happens to be free.
- Step 2
Site check
Address checked for airspace restrictions and a lawful take off point before the booking is confirmed, so nothing gets discovered on the day.
- Step 3
The flight
A methodical pass round each elevation, then close work on ridges, verges, flashings and render. Half an hour to an hour on a typical new build plot.
- Step 4
The report
Images sorted by elevation, anything found marked up, findings written in plain words with a note on how it compares to a properly finished job. In your inbox within 48 hours.
Behind the work
Kit, cover and qualifications
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.
The snagging survey
New Build Roof and Exterior Snagging Survey questions
- Can I use these photographs directly with my warranty provider?
- Yes. The images and the written findings are yours to send to a builder, a site manager or a warranty provider as evidence. What is not included is an assessment of whether a given finding is covered under your specific policy, because that depends on documents this survey has not seen.
- What if the estate is still under construction next door?
- Common on a new phase. It is checked and planned around before the flight, both for airspace and so the imagery is clearly of your own plot rather than the working site beside it.
- Can you compare my roof to a neighbour's on the same estate?
- The survey covers your own property. Where a pattern looks like it is repeated across a row of similar plots, the report notes that it is worth other owners checking their own roof rather than making a claim about a property that has not been surveyed.
Where
New Build Roof and Exterior Snagging Survey across the South West
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.