Building Inspections by Drones
Building inspectors who once relied on binoculars and climbing ladders to conduct their building inspections are now beginning to use drones to check property exteriors for signs of damage or deterioration that can cause issues for homeowners. The problem is they face a dilemma and overseas problems have already begun.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal suggests their lower cost and greater thoroughness is coming into conflict with another public safety concern: the danger drones pose to other aircraft or people on the ground.
In America for example New York, which has thousands of old skyscrapers, drone use is largely prohibited and the technology isn't being considered for property inspection. The Department of Buildings "does not use drones for building inspections, and there are currently no plans to start using drones in the future," a department spokesman said.
Drones, which had early applications in warfare and surveillance, increasingly are being adopted by a wide range of businesses-from package delivery to underwater exploration. Business applications have grown significantly since 2016, when the Federal Aviation Administration in America enacted a new rule making it easier to become a commercial drone operator.
Since the rule passed, technological developments have made drones smaller, more reliable and easier to fly, causing a growing number of residential and commercial building inspectors to embrace them as they are able to inspect areas of a buildings never inspected before. Are we headed for similar rules?
Using a drone also can shorten a inspections of office buildings to a day, The whole intent will be to keep our inspectors safe, so they wouldn't have to climb up on a roof, and not damage building materials.
Software is being developed to allow drones to take images of a property and use the data to develop building models and issue inspection reports and already overseas some companies are carrying out night time drone inspections of walls and roofs, as such inspections allow inspectors to accurately track where energy is escaping from buildings.
Though their remains a number of obstacles before drone use takes off. The three major hurdles are transparency, privacy and protection of manned aircrafts especially areas that may be close to an airport.
Currently its estimated that drone technology undergoes significant updates about every three months.
Overseas technology has been developed in which a drone can fly automatically without a ground pilot to inspect buildings-something not yet allowed by overseas regulators. It's not a technology question of how much drones but a question of if the regulatory framework will open up in the next several years to allow further use.