The condition of the roof at St Luke’s Church was brought to the attention of Yorkshire Housing after a resident contacted them to report a leak. Yorkshire Housing planned to carry out a traditional inspection immediately to assess the overall condition of the roof. However, due to the building’s complexity and the safety issues relating to the roof access (with the tallest part of the building measuring 50m), a detailed assessment of the roof condition without the use of drones was limited.
An inspection by another contractor using traditional methods led to the advice of a total roof replacement, at a cost of c.£350,000, including the cost of c.£80,000 just to assess the roof condition alone (involving a combination of cherry pickers, towers, scaffolding and steeplejacks). These works were expected to last between 3 to 6 months, with safety risks being a key concern throughout the project.
Vantage UAV undertook a full drone inspection of the building (roof and all facades) in just 2 days, with no need for personnel to access the building meaning minimal safety risk. The outputs produced were: detailed high resolution photogrammetry, a 4K video and the creation of a full 3D model of the building. Vantage UAV’s portal provided a viewing platform which supported close inspection, annotation and millimetre-accurate measuring capabilities and accountability. From this, detailed reports were generated and shared to be used as evidence for required work.
Vantage UAV’s drone inspection enabled the identification of a variety of issues across the entire building, such as broken and missing tiles, vegetation ingress and poor flashing condition. The detailed assessment showed that only certain areas of the roof needed attention.
Despite the inspection covering a significant area, the 3D model gave evidence for a reduced cost of work at circa £50,000, a total cost saving of circa £300,000. This allowed Yorkshire Housing to redistribute funds towards other high priority areas.
1. Valentz, 2015. Source: www.phpsd.com
