Home Inspector in Arizona Looking at Drone Options for Roof Inspections

Motopreserve

Drone Enthusiast
I'm thinking about making a trek to the IOM TT this year. That has to be my favorite race with MotoGP in second place and AMA Superbike/sportbikes in third.

Very, very...VERY jealous!

I was really bummed to hear that Laguna was cancelled this year. Best turn in the series off the schedule.
 





Motopreserve

Drone Enthusiast
Mine as well. The TT3D movie (I don't have it in 3D) is amazing. Some of the footage is downright scary capturing the bikes leaned over in hedges next to rock walls. Makes me shudder just thinking about it. Coverage this year was decent on velocity - but they spread it out 1 race per week. So I had to keep away from any news sites about it.

Nice to see McGuiness pull it out in the end...
 

DukeMalloy

New Member
RE: "With the inspections time is money ..."

Could you still make a decent margin on the inspection if your hired a pilot to set up/take down, process video etc.? Your value seems to be in your expertise inspecting roofs. What if you could just show up, direct the flight, or fly yourself if you wanted, and move on with your day?

Great thread gents.
 

Mikeq

Member
Just my .02 cents but I think if I hired a home inspector, I'd want him up on the roof doing a hands on inspection.
 

Motopreserve

Drone Enthusiast
Just my .02 cents but I think if I hired a home inspector, I'd want him up on the roof doing a hands on inspection.

I understand this line of thinking too - but I feel the advantage may be that with this technique, in essence the consumer could be 'on the roof' with him seeing the imperfections - with the benefit of video.
 

Mikeq

Member
I understand this line of thinking too - but I feel the advantage may be that with this technique, in essence the consumer could be 'on the roof' with him seeing the imperfections - with the benefit of video.

I guess this makes a little more sense but with time being money, wouldn't it be easier to just carry up a handheld camera with a video TX? Seems overly complicated to get a drone involved. Trying to perform the inspection while flying seems like you'd probably do both poorly or at best make the inspection take longer than it normally would.

I guess the novelty of it might attract some attention though and possibly boost business.

Not trying to be negative here, just kind of thinking out loud.
 

kloner

Aerial DP
the other day i was messing mith a camera trying to sort out a new lens and jello,,,, was just in atti to see how hard it was to hit a second story.... it was tough to fly but you could easily get used to doing it. this was just filmed in 108024p, you could do it in 108060p and crank down the speed to 30-40% and have flicker free hd...

 
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Accupro

Member
RE: "With the inspections time is money ..."

Could you still make a decent margin on the inspection if your hired a pilot to set up/take down, process video etc.? Your value seems to be in your expertise inspecting roofs. What if you could just show up, direct the flight, or fly yourself if you wanted, and move on with your day?

Great thread gents.

Its possible, depends on the $'s. In my case I am already there at the house which covers my gas expense. If I had someone meet me to do it they would need to cover travel expense, portion of equipment cost, etc. I'm thinking I would need to actually "see" the roof and its surface in order to identify potential defects. Its hard to explain but its kinda 6th sense stuff. I get up on the roof and am putting everything else I have seen on the ground, in the attic, the age of the property, modifications to the home, my years of experience, etc. and then drawing conclusions. I average maybe $350 for a typical home inspection which generally takes 2.5 hours, not sure if I would want to pay someone, say $50 to meet me there or do it myself.

If I had a partner who also did the roof portion with a drone, and we could do maybe 3 houses a day instead of my typical 2 houses a day, maybe.
 

Accupro

Member
Just my .02 cents but I think if I hired a home inspector, I'd want him up on the roof doing a hands on inspection.

Good point you make Mike, however most inspectors out here in Arizona do NOT walk the roof, I have tended to be an exception and have always, to the extent I can get to it, walked the roof, there are some roof's, clay tile, that you can't walk as the weight would break the tiles.

AZ is one of 30+ states that require inspectors to be "certified." In the case of AZ the state adopted an older version of the ASHI (American Society of America) "Standards of Practice" for how a home inspection is performed, many states defer to these standards. The ASHI standards do NOT require the inspector to walk the roof, most inspectors will put up a ladder at various perimeter locations and look at the roof along with using binoculars. A common tool some inspectors use is a long telescoping pole with the point and shot mounted to the top to get better pictures.

The number one reason an inspector leaves the business is having fallen off the roof, I have fallen twice in 12 years and fortunately not hurt myself severely. Ladder safety is probably one of the better attended seminars at ASHI's annual convention. I'm sure many will say thats stupid or dumb to fall off the ladder knowing the risks but again until you have been there you don't really understand. You get a bunch of inspectors together to discuss roof inspections, falling from ladders, etc. and you won't get a bunch of guys making fun, typically the older guys who have been doing it awhile will say "I don't walk roofs for that very reason."

There are a couple of issues I could see that I might miss by not walking the roof. I have found for instance a loose chimney or chimney cap as I go over and push and pull on them, something I could not do with a drone or from a ladder for that matter. Also its possible to find a soft spot in the roof sheathing due to typically a prior roof leak, but you would generally also see this in the attic, assuming you walked/crawled the entire attic, again something that is NOT required to be done in the state standards of practice. I also tend to take a close-up of the manufacturer's plate on a roof mounted HVAC unit, again something that is not required.

So I would say using a drone to do the roof inspection would be better than what most inspectors do, as most do not walk them, but not as good as walking them, depending on the inspector who is doing the inspection.
 

Accupro

Member
the other day i was messing mith a camera trying to sort out a new lens and jello,,,, was just in atti to see how hard it was to hit a second story.... it was tough to fly but you could easily get used to doing it. this was just filmed in 108024p, you could do it in 108060p and crank down the speed to 30-40% and have flicker free hd...

Excellent stuff Kloner!!

Well I have to make some observations about your roof: it is in replacement condition and should be evaluated by a licensed roofer. I would guess it to be 20+ years old and beyond its useful life!! The 1st portion you show in the video with all of the exposed fiberglass interior membrane (white in the video) must be facing south as thats the typical failure mode for the portion of the roof receiving the most sun. I would have wanted to look more closely at the white flat roofed portion at the back, it looks like it was coated maybe 6 to 8 years ago, would have to see it more closely but it probably needs to be cleaned, prepped and recoated. Typical coating would last 3 to 5 years.

So what I want to do is obviously doable, just need to decide on the platform and camera system. Appreciate that I tend to incorporate pictures in my inspection reports, not video. That said it would be best to have the platform be able to do both.

Here is an area on the roof where the litter needs to be clean off. Not easy to see in the picture but the neighbor had a large tree removed that overgrew this house, but the litter from that tree had never been removed.
View attachment 16620

Here is an example of a distance shot giving context to a broken tile, in my inspection software I would draw a circle around the tiles in the valley and label it broken tile.
View attachment 16621

After that I would show this close-up
View attachment 16619

So in continuing to do more and more research I have a couple of questions maybe you can answer:

1. I'm seeing where 5.8Mhz is less likely to work behind walls, roof sections, etc. Kinda like if you would have dropped around to the backside of the house in your video to look closer at the white roofed section, what do you think? I'm seeing where 2.4Mhz would be less likely to drop out? I guess the issue would be controlling the platform with 2.4Mhz and the video with 5.8Mhz so you could atleast get your bird back if the pictures started dropping out? Maybe the issue of dropping out in the context of your video is mute as the distances are not that great?

2. As you can tell from my pictures it would be best for me to be able to zoom. I did not see any reference on this forum to the use of CHDK (http://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php) to remotely control cheap point and shoot, expensive DSLR, or camcorders via RC to activate the shutter, zoom and many other photo setup features like monitoring battery life of camera, longer exposure times, ability to get RAW files, etc. Did I miss something on the forum, has this option been discussed?

I am currently using a Canon A2300 with: 16M Pixels, 28mm wide angle lens, and 5X optical zoom that weighs 125 grams versus the GoPro 3+ at 73 grams and I could remotely operate the tilt of the Zenmuse H3-G2 gimbal and the zoom of the A2300 using RC. In my case when I'm doing inspections I have the A2300 set to the lowest resolution as can be seen from the pictures I include in a PDF report. Maybe I could shoot at a higher resolution from the platform and then crop and drop to a lower resolution to insert into the report?

Then the issue is what would be the best low-cost platform that would allow me to gimbal mount on a tiltable gimbal the heavier point and shoot camera and not produce significant jello with the 5X zoom? I'm thinking the DJI Phantom 2??

Also it appears there is a known bug with the A2300 version of CHDK that does not allow the A2300 to auto-focus while zooming so I would have to find an alternative camera but I think we are looking at less than $100.

What do you think guys??
 

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kloner

Aerial DP
Liter, pshhhh.... you can charge em for cleaning the roof too cause all that's blowing off. Tell me about it, was a perfect candidate to show this with all the damage. Were hoping it burns down before we gotta remodel it all


the rig i showed there was a small 5lbs quad with a brushless gimbal that costs around $2200 to build. the camera and lens mod if you just bought is $1000, has a 5.4mm aftermarket lens

next step up is something in the 600-800 class with a brushless gimbal and i commented before about sending. at that point to really be safe would be a 1000-1100 class, but none the less, your looking in the range of $10-$15k complete ready to work, you would want a nex series alexmos type most likely 3 axis gimbal, would help park the rig somewhere and move around the cam from diff angles, allow room for a simple follow zoom type system with a servo of some kind....

it would be 15-20lbs and require quite a bit of insurance to be done responsibly... $2-$3k a year...

yes, 2.4 is king, to do it you need a different freq on the radio, we use 433, it all requires a ham license to use...

phantom2 barely does a hero, add a nd filter, won't go, bet that custom lens i have wouldn't either.... there alright if you want to do one thing and thats fly a hero, the radio has no range, your gonna have horrible reception. nothing like what i showed from
 

JoeBob

Elevation via Flatulation
Kloner: EXCELLENT test. Thank you for doing that.

1- Which lens did you wind up using via the RibCage?
2- Can you tell us what Angle of View it has?
3- How close did you actually have to fly to get the close-ups on the roof peak?

I'm looking at using the Back-Bone 3.6mm Low Distortion lens - AoV = 73.5.

(My application is on the architectural side of roofing.)


AccuPro: Here's a lens that will give you good close ups, but might be difficult to fly with
'Zoomed' lens for GoPro - 80 Degree Angle of View:
http://ragecams.com/shop/54mm-lens-....html?osCsid=916cde4eef4565ee9851d400032f389b


Angle of View Reference:
View attachment 16624
GoPro in Wide (which uses the whole sensor) is 170 degrees.


Kloner, the prop wash in your video might spawn a new application: cleaning leaves off the roof without using a ladder.
(Edit: You type faster than I do!) That was on of your Discos, right? TBS gimbal?
 

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SMP

Member
I an aerial videographer getting into cinematography.... we have somewhat left this level of footage for dslr and up..... but i manufacture kits that make things like that and get em bigger and better and in doing so i dabble in self done demos and editing....

i FPV for fun, fly big cams for living so i got all kinds of crap....

Heros do not zoom. that'd be more like backbone if you wanted hd recording or a security type conveyor belt reading cam like a fed ex or ups line would use. problem there is sd recording is all i know of less than the aircraft with that.

20140131211454-32aa7b72-la.jpg


and even then would need a fancy zoom setup that's not really developed yet. the easy way to zoom is to fly closer. in cinema we have follow focus and follow iris and follow zoom that controlls that stuff on a dslr, the systems are over $20k just for the part that does that... it's not something any of these normally have...

20140108195743-6a24eaf1.jpg

but that generates a hell of a payload and nothing you want to send off in somebodys neighborhood doing inspections

I'm not concerned who you work for, your the one that wants to charge for flying, that's the supposed problem and it's yours. I've watched $100k hit the ground, it happens

Hey Kloner, mind if I ask you where you were able to run down your rod clamps??? Thats awesome!
 

Mikeq

Member
Good point you make Mike, however most inspectors out here in Arizona do NOT walk the roof, I have tended to be an exception and have always, to the extent I can get to it, walked the roof, there are some roof's, clay tile, that you can't walk as the weight would break the tiles.

AZ is one of 30+ states that require inspectors to be "certified." In the case of AZ the state adopted an older version of the ASHI (American Society of America) "Standards of Practice" for how a home inspection is performed, many states defer to these standards. The ASHI standards do NOT require the inspector to walk the roof, most inspectors will put up a ladder at various perimeter locations and look at the roof along with using binoculars. A common tool some inspectors use is a long telescoping pole with the point and shot mounted to the top to get better pictures.

The number one reason an inspector leaves the business is having fallen off the roof, I have fallen twice in 12 years and fortunately not hurt myself severely. Ladder safety is probably one of the better attended seminars at ASHI's annual convention. I'm sure many will say thats stupid or dumb to fall off the ladder knowing the risks but again until you have been there you don't really understand. You get a bunch of inspectors together to discuss roof inspections, falling from ladders, etc. and you won't get a bunch of guys making fun, typically the older guys who have been doing it awhile will say "I don't walk roofs for that very reason."

There are a couple of issues I could see that I might miss by not walking the roof. I have found for instance a loose chimney or chimney cap as I go over and push and pull on them, something I could not do with a drone or from a ladder for that matter. Also its possible to find a soft spot in the roof sheathing due to typically a prior roof leak, but you would generally also see this in the attic, assuming you walked/crawled the entire attic, again something that is NOT required to be done in the state standards of practice. I also tend to take a close-up of the manufacturer's plate on a roof mounted HVAC unit, again something that is not required.

So I would say using a drone to do the roof inspection would be better than what most inspectors do, as most do not walk them, but not as good as walking them, depending on the inspector who is doing the inspection.


Wow, didn't know this. I'm in Florida and have hired a couple of home inspectors. They've always gone up on the roof. It's probably more important here with hurricanes to make sure everything is as it should be.

I completely understand the potential for injury on ladders and roofs and can see why you'd rather not take that chance if it's not the norm in your area.

I had an ex-boss who missed a rung on a ladder putting up xmas lights. His foot went through the ladder and he fell backwards. He broke his neck and became a quadriplegic. He lived for about a year in the hospital but ultimately died.
 

kloner

Aerial DP
rod clamps, rod clamps,,,,, i'm confused, shoulda checked in before i had a couple beers.....

Jerry Coleman died the same way, ladder falls are pretty serious, your better off jumping then getting the whalop of the ol ladder
 

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