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gable/simple elevation

multi-elevation home

thermal inspection of residential roofs

prerequisites:

  • roof materials: asphalt, coal tar, slag, and modified bitumen

  • time of inspection: half an hour after sunset

  • weather conditions: day needs to be hot with relatively few clouds

how it works:

during the day any water trapped under the roof membrane heats up (to as much as 120 degrees.) half an hour after sunset the roofing system material has cooled significantly while the trapped water is still hot, making it clearly visible in infrared.

benefits:

  • pinpoint areas of heat loss

  • detect problems that cannot be visually identified

  • identify structural problems early

  • non-destructive

  • immediate results

  • safer than walking the roof​

results:

  • a hand-stitched orthomosaic of the entire roof (a detailed, distortion-free image that's created by stitching together multiple aerial photos.) typically, orthomosaics are created by a drone on a pre-planned, automated flight to capture all of the images necessary to create one big picture. residential roofs are not large enough to allow for an automated inspection, so both the flight and the stitching of the orthomosaic image have to be done by hand.

  • a link (good for 30 days) to all of the content from the flight. the orthomosaic is the final product that will be created and used to determine where the problem lies, but having access to all of the flight imagery can be useful for correcting the issue.

  • 3 - 5 days to create the orthomosaic​ and prepare all raw content for delivery to the client.

simple elevation / gable roofs  

vs. multi-elevation roofs:

gable and simple elevation homes (up to six elevations) are not as difficult to inspect as multi-elevations. for each elevation the drone has a unique set of variables to follow including the distance between the drone and the elevation, and the angle of the thermal camera's lens in relation to the pitch of the elevation. however, there are time constraints, as the water is cooling rapidly and there is only so much time to inspect the entire roofing system.

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