13 Nov Believe It or Not – Drone Edition
Believe it or not, it is no longer necessary to climb on roofs to do inspections! While some people are so experienced that they can tell you if you have damage just by looking up, automation is becoming more and more popular in the roofing and construction industry. What is automation? Automation leverages technology to manage, monitor, or perform a service. Roofing will always require a lot of human-touch, but implementing certain types of technology can supplement human shortcomings.
Drones can be used to detect damage. Most of the new drones are equipped with 4K cameras for maximum clarity. All we need to do is fly a drone and take some photos, and we can look at the images with the naked eye, or we can run the images through a software to detect abnormalities in the images themselves and highlight the damage. While an inexperienced or apathetic inspector may not know the difference between blistering on a roof or hail damage, the consistency of machines cannot be denied. The software available now can learn different types of damage and give you an accurate assessment every time. Basically, using these machines and the software available — we can eliminate the possibility of human error. A drone will never have tired eyes or have too much on its mind, but as human beings, we can sometimes be distracted by our mental and physical ailments. We may not make the wrong assessment on purpose, but it can certainly happen — unlike the machine.
The use of drones and machines to inspect and estimate a home is still a bit controversial in the roofing and construction industry. In time, it is believed that enough data will have been collected and damage detection will be 99.9 percent accuracy. This could replace the act of climbing on roofs altogether. The roofing and construction industry is beginning to embrace the future, and we cannot wait to see where it takes us.