Tim Butler Entrepreneur, Property Surveyor and Managing Director of Call the Butler Ltd has been speaking about the use of remote controlled drones to inspect buildings both internally and externally.

Butler said: “I’ve really found adapting and adopting the new technology of remote controlled drones so much easier than I thought it would be. This whole process brings significant savings to owners of any building, but especially to those in old or historic properties as it often removes the use of scaffolding or towers from the inspection process.”

Historic England is also a fan of the new technology with them being the organisation that looks after the historical monuments and heritage of England from Palaces to Memorials and Gardens. They also value the use of drones or more correctly UAV’s, (Unmanned Ariel Vehicles) in their conservation and maintenance programmes of monuments and ancient buildings.

Since using them the organization soon recognized that the images in still and/or video format along with the data they can capture through the use of UAV’s can add considerable value across all manner of applications in their work. This would typically include things like the monitoring of  a property’s condition; for use in presentations and displays which can be used in their own multimedia advertising and information delivery. And of course it goes without saying, for when they or any organization are carrying out surveys, area and terrain mapping, recording and reporting data for historic value and information dissemination.

Butler finished by saying: “The UAV offers us the nearest thing to the mythical “sky hook” we have sought for years and the ability to view inaccessible areas of buildings, roofs, chimneys hidden valleys and gutters from the safety of the ground. Drones are becoming an indispensable tool in establishing the condition of hidden areas particularly in period properties.

The Thermal Imaging Camera in particular affords us the opportunity to accurately establish the current condition of a property at a specific point in time. From there we can create a meaningful base to develop and implement a proactive maintenance regime to maintain a property to its best advantage.

Locating problems at an early stage and dealing with their repair will enable timely maintenance to prevent small faults becoming larger problems (before they normally become apparent) making them more economic to repair. This will ensure that damage to the fabric of the building is minimized as part of a sensible maintenance regime. 

This is particularly important in period properties with solid stone walls because damage from dampness can very quickly seriously affect the fabric of the building. Ingress of damp means that walls, timbers and fabrics will degenerate rapidly and take much longer to dry out to a satisfactory safe condition should faults be left undetected.”