so ive been doing roofing inspections for about 8 years now and my company is finally letting me experiment with adding drone work to the workflow. we mostly do flat commercial roofs, warehouses, the occasional big box retail job. right now we send guys up with harnesses which takes half a day minimum and honestly the safety paperwork alone is a nightmare.

been looking at the mavic 3 enterprise and also the autel evo ii pro for this but not sure which way to go. the thermal attachment on the mavic 3E seems really useful for finding moisture trapped under the membrane but the price jump is significant. does anyone actually use thermal for roofing regularly or is it more of a nice-to-have that sounds good in a sales pitch.

also curious how you guys handle the deliverables for clients. like do you give them raw video, annotated screenshots, a full report with overlays. trying to figure out what the standard expectation is before i go quoting jobs

thermal on roofing is not a gimmick at all, at least not for flat membrane roofs. ive caught moisture intrusion that nobody would have found until there was visible bubbling or interior damage. you want to fly early morning or just after sunset when the temp differential is best - midday is basically useless for thermal on roofs.

for deliverables it really depends on the client. insurance adjusters usually want annotated stills with GPS coordinates baked in, property managers sometimes just want a video walkthrough they can share with their board. i use DroneDeploy for the bigger jobs to generate an orthomosaic with a damage overlay, some clients love that and some just find it confusing honestly. start simple and let the client tell you what they need.

on the mavic 3E vs autel question - i'd go mavic just for the ecosystem maturity and parts availability, the autel is fine but if something breaks mid contract you're waiting longer for support in my experience

we switched to drone-first inspections about two years ago for our commercial portfolio and the time savings are real. what nobody tells you upfront is the report generation takes longer than the actual flight when you're starting out, so factor that into your pricing or you'll underbid yourself badly on the first few jobs.

also make sure your Part 107 is current if you're in the US and double check your COIs cover commercial drone work specifically, some general contractor liability policies dont automatically extend to UAV operations and thats a fun conversation to have after the fact