Drone Chimney Survey
For Sweeps and Roofers
A dated, close photographic record of a stack a client can book directly, or you can send on, so you are quoting or advising from evidence rather than what is visible from the ground.
A sweep can tell a customer a great deal about the inside of a flue and very little about the outside of the stack above the roofline, because that is not somewhere a brush or a camera on a rod reaches. A roofer asked to look at a chimney while quoting something else entirely is often working from binoculars and a guess. Both end up recommending scaffolding just to get a proper look, for a job that might turn out to need nothing at all.
This survey is built to sit alongside that work rather than replace it. A client can book directly and have the report addressed to you as well, or you can send the address and what you already suspect. Either way you end up with close, dated images of the actual stack before anyone commits to scaffolding, or before anyone tells a customer a repair is needed on the strength of a look from the garden.
The survey does not price the work and does not compete with your quote. It answers what state the stack is actually in, so the conversation with your customer starts from a photograph rather than a guess.
What is included
- The report addressed to you as well as your client, on request
- Findings written for a trade reader, not simplified past the point of being useful
- No repair pricing in the report, so it never competes with your quote
- Full resolution images of every pot, joint and course of brick, so you can zoom in on the same detail
- A visual read on lean, using the stack's own coursing rather than a guess from below
- A fixed price agreed before the visit, so it can be built into your own costing
Before scaffolding goes up, not after
Scaffolding around a stack is one of the more expensive parts of a chimney job before a single brick has been touched, and it is usually booked on the strength of a look from the ground that cannot actually confirm what is wrong. A close photographic survey first means the scope of work, repointing a section, replacing a pot, refixing a flashing, rebuilding the crown, is known before the scaffolding is priced rather than discovered once it is already up.
It also protects you from the other direction: a stack that looks rough from below sometimes turns out to need very little once it is actually seen close up, and knowing that before quoting a full rebuild saves your customer money and saves you an awkward conversation later.
Evidence a customer will actually believe
A customer who has been told a stack needs work, based on a look from the pavement, is entitled to ask how anyone can tell from down there. A close photograph of the actual cracked flaunching or the actual lifted flashing answers that question in a way a verbal description never quite does, and it tends to shorten the conversation about whether the work is actually needed.
For managing agents and landlords in particular, a dated photographic record of a stack's condition is often the first thing asked for before repair work is authorised, and having it ready before the conversation starts moves things along faster than promising to arrange it once asked.
On the day
How a for sweeps and roofers runs
- Step 1
You send what you know
The address, what your client has told you, and anything you already suspect from the ground. It shapes where the flight spends its time.
- Step 2
Booking around your job
A fixed price and a slot that suits the job, so the survey happens before a scaffolding decision needs making rather than after.
- Step 3
The survey
Every face of the stack photographed close, as described on the chimney survey page, with particular attention to whatever you have already flagged.
- Step 4
The report
In your inbox and your client's within 48 hours, with full resolution images so you can look at the same evidence rather than take a description on trust.
Behind the work
Kit, cover and qualifications
CAA registered
Operator ID and Flyer ID held, plus the A2 Certificate of Competency. Every survey is planned to the rules that apply to the site, and the paperwork is available before the visit if your sweep, roofer or agent wants it.
100 megapixel camera
A DJI Mavic 4 Pro with a Hasselblad camera and 6K video, close enough from a safe standoff distance to read a mortar joint or a hairline crack in a flaunching collar without leaning anything on the stack.
Radiometric thermal option
A DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced carrying a 640 by 512 thermal camera, flown alongside the visual pass where a damp pattern on a stack needs reading against the brickwork around it.
Insured with Coverdrone
Full commercial cover for the operation. Certificates go to sweeps, roofers, letting agents and insurers as a matter of course, without anyone having to chase for them.
For sweeps and roofers
For Sweeps and Roofers questions
- Can my client book this and have you send me the report?
- Yes. Say so at booking, or have your client mention you, and the report goes to both addresses. There is nothing to set up in advance.
- Do you price the repair?
- No. The report describes what was found and how it looks. Pricing the work stays entirely with you.
- Will this replace an internal sweep or flue inspection?
- No, and it is not meant to. This looks at the outside of the stack, above the roofline, which a sweep's own tools cannot easily reach. The two are complementary rather than overlapping.
Where
For Sweeps and Roofers across the South West
Also on this site
For the parts you cannot see from the ground
Book a chimney survey with Drone Chimney 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.