The firm
One surveyor, named, with a construction background behind him
Where the survey side came from
Drone Survey Company is run by Sam Hembury, based in Exeter and working across Devon and the wider South West. The background is construction rather than photography, and that is the part that shows up in the reports: the flying is a way of getting a camera to a place a person cannot easily stand, and the value is in knowing what you are looking at once it is on screen.
A surveyor who has stood on a scaffold and stripped a covering back knows the difference between a slate that has slipped and one that was never nailed properly, between a stain that is a live leak and one that dried out two winters ago, and between a fault worth writing up and a mark on the tile that means nothing. Somebody flying a camera without that background can take an excellent photograph of a problem and describe it wrongly.
The aircraft are a DJI Mavic 4 Pro, carrying a 100 megapixel Hasselblad camera and 6K video, and a DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced, which carries a 640 by 512 radiometric thermal camera alongside its visual one. The first is what gets close enough to read a joint. The second is what reads temperature rather than colour.
On the record
Registrations, kit and cover
CAA registered
Registered with the Civil Aviation Authority as an operator, with an Operator ID and a Flyer ID held. Ask for the numbers and you will get them before the visit.
A2 Certificate of Competency
The pilot holds an A2 CofC, the certificate that allows flying closer to uninvolved people than the default. There is no GVC, and this site says so rather than leaving you to guess.
Insured with Coverdrone
Commercial operations are insured with Coverdrone. If your site or your managing agent needs a certificate on file, it goes over with the quote rather than after the flight.
Two aircraft, one pilot
A DJI Mavic 4 Pro with a 100 megapixel Hasselblad camera for detail, and a DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced with a 640 by 512 radiometric thermal camera. Sam Hembury flies both himself.
DJI Mavic 4 Pro
100 megapixel Hasselblad camera and 6K video.
DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced
640 by 512 radiometric thermal camera alongside the visual camera.
How we work
How this firm works, in four plain statements
The paperwork goes out before the visit, not after
The Coverdrone certificate, the Operator ID and Flyer ID numbers and a site specific risk assessment where one is wanted, all with the quote. A managing agent asking for them a week later is a firm that was not ready.
The limits are stated as plainly as the strengths
An A2 Certificate of Competency is held and a GVC is not. Where a job needs flying very close to people or property outside your control, it has to be arranged so that area is under your control for the flight window, or it does not get flown. That gets said at quote stage.
One fixed price, agreed in writing, travel inside it
No hourly creep, no mileage line added afterwards, no second visit invoiced because the first one ran long. If what is on site is materially different from what was described, the price is re-agreed before anything is flown.
The report is written to be read by someone else
Most of these reports get forwarded to a roofer, a chartered surveyor, a solicitor or an insurer. So it is written for that reader: findings in one place, the images that support each one sitting with it, and a plain note of anything that could not be seen.
See how a job runs
Request a quote with Drone Survey Company
Tell us the address and what you need looking at. Sam Hembury will come back with a fixed price and the next available slot.