Aerial Surveys
Commercial aerial survey and inspection flown from Stamford. Roofs, elevations, structures, sites and land recorded at full resolution — usually in under half a day, and without a ladder touching the building.
An aerial survey is simply a way of looking at something that is difficult, expensive or dangerous to look at from the ground. A roof five storeys up. A site too large to photograph from its own boundary. A chimney stack that would otherwise need a scaffold. A holding that takes a fortnight to walk.
The aircraft is the least interesting part of it. What matters is that the imagery answers the question you actually had — whether that is a contractor’s quote, an insurer’s file, a planning submission or a record of how a site looked on a particular date. That is why every job here starts with what the output has to do, rather than with what the drone can be made to produce.
This page covers the ground: what an aerial survey is useful for, what you get, what it costs you in time, and — just as importantly — where it is the wrong tool and you should be talking to somebody else.
What it shows
- Roof condition — slipped, cracked and missing tiles, slates and sheets
- Failed flashings, leadwork and abutment detail behind a leak
- Blocked, split or sagging gutters, valleys and rainwater goods
- Chimney and high-level masonry condition
- Flat roof ponding, blocked outlets and failed detail
- Storm and impact damage across a whole building or site in one visit
- Site layout, access, boundaries and how much space is actually left
- Construction progress against the programme, month by month
- Solar arrays — soiling, damage, vegetation shading and mounting condition
- Standing water, drainage routes and where ground is failing
- The parts of a building nobody has been able to see for years
Save time and money with drone inspections — send a postcode and a sentence about the job.
Get in touchPlanned around the output, not around the aircraft
Most aerial survey work goes wrong in the same way: somebody flies the site, produces a large quantity of imagery, and hands over something that looks impressive and does not answer the question.
Every job here starts the other way round. What is the imagery for — a contractor's quote, an insurance file, a planning submission, a record before works start next door? That decides the height, the angles, the overlap and the format, and it is settled in writing before anybody leaves.
The background here is professional photography rather than surveying, which is the reason this matters more than it might. A technically correct image that is useless to the person who commissioned it has failed.
What you get
Close enough to identify an individual cracked tile or a lifted flashing, at a safe standoff, without anyone going up.
The whole site as one continuous overhead image, useful for planning, comparison and marking things up.
Where the brief calls for them, produced photogrammetrically from the same flight.
Every file carries its capture date, which is what makes it useful in a claim, a dispute or a programme.
What was flown, what stood out, and what could not be seen. No jargon.
Quoted against a written scope before we attend, including travel. No day rates and no variation after the event.
When An Aerial Survey Is The Right Tool
It is worth being specific, because "drone survey" is used to describe a dozen unrelated things.
An aerial survey earns its place when:
- The thing you need to see is out of reach. A roof, a chimney, a parapet, a mast, the back of a building with no access.
- Getting to it would cost more than the answer. Scaffold and cherry pickers are expensive and slow, and often need to be booked before anyone knows whether there is a problem.
- Somebody would have to work at height. The safest inspection is the one nobody climbs for.
- The site is too big to photograph from the ground. A development, a yard, a holding, a solar array.
- You need a dated record. Before works start next door, before a tenancy, before a claim, before a programme begins.
- You need to compare two dates. Flown to the same pattern, a second visit lines up with the first.
And When It Is Not
Saying so costs the odd job and saves a great deal more than that, because the alternative is an invoice for imagery that does not answer the thing you asked.
- Measurements to a design tolerance. Setting out, levels, boundary determination and anything signed off by a surveyor need ground control and survey instruments. We do not carry them.
- Thermal and heat-loss work. A radiometric camera on a different airframe. Not offered.
- Anything inside. A roof void, a flue, a duct or a confined space is a job for a person or a pole camera.
- A structural or condition opinion. We record what is visible and describe it plainly. Diagnosing a defect and its cause is a chartered surveyor's or an engineer's job, and our imagery supports that report rather than replacing it.
If your job is one of these, say so at the enquiry and we will tell you straight rather than at the end of a site visit.
Who asks for it
- Building contractors and developers
- Roofing contractors and facilities managers
- Architects and design teams
- Chartered surveyors
- Property managers and managing agents
- Insurers and loss adjusters
- Farms, estates and land agents
- Local authorities and housing providers
- Solar and renewables operators
- Telecoms and infrastructure owners
- Homeowners and landlords
What clients get from working with us
Timescales
Most sites are surveyed within two working days of instruction, with reports sent 24 hours after surveys.
Deliverables
Orthomosaics, 3D models, point clouds, elevation sets and edited media, supplied in the formats your team already works in.
Coverage
Operating throughout the East and West Midlands, Yorkshire and East Anglia.
Compliance
Fully authorised and insured, with a site-specific risk assessment issued before every attendance.
Continuity
One point of contact from enquiry to delivery. Data is processed in-house and is never passed to a third-party bureau.
Certainty
A fixed written quotation against an agreed deliverable. No day rates and no variation after the event.
Questions
What is an aerial survey, in plain terms?
A planned set of photographs, and sometimes a map or model built from them, taken from an aircraft small enough to fly close to a building. It is a way of seeing things that are otherwise out of reach.
Is it a measured survey?
No. We do not use ground control or survey-grade positioning, so distances, levels and volumes taken from our outputs are indicative — good for comparison, planning and record, not for design, setting out or anything a professional has to sign off. Where you need that, you need a surveyor with the right instruments, and we will say so.
Do you do thermal or LiDAR?
Neither. Thermal needs a radiometric camera on a different airframe; LiDAR is different equipment again. Everything offered here is within what we actually hold.
How long does it take on site?
Most single buildings are under an hour. A full site or a holding is usually a morning. Processing takes a few days after that, and the delivery date is agreed at quotation.
Do you need scaffold or access equipment?
No. That is most of the point — no scaffold, no cherry picker, no roof access permit and nobody working at height.
What about permission and airspace?
We complete an airspace assessment and a site-specific risk assessment for every attendance, and obtain any clearance the location needs. Where a site sits under a flight restriction zone we tell you at the quotation stage.
What happens if the weather is wrong?
We move the date, at no cost. Wind, rain and flat light all degrade the imagery, and a survey you cannot rely on is worse than no survey.
How far do you travel?
We are based in Stamford and work across the East Midlands and East Anglia as a matter of routine, and further for work that justifies the journey. There is no published radius — travel is worked out for your site and included in the quoted figure.
Tell us about the site and we will take it from there
A site postcode and a sentence about what you need is enough to get started.
Get in touch
Provide a site postcode or boundary and a short description of the required output. We will confirm the deliverables, level of detail.
- A site postcode is sufficient to price most instructions
- Written quotation, in most cases the same working day
- Deliverables and formats agreed at instruction
info@midlandsaerialsurveys.co.uk
Stamford, Lincolnshire