so i've been doing roofing estimates for about 6 years now and my buddy keeps telling me to just get a drone and stop climbing up on every single job site. i finally caved and picked up a mavic 3 classic a few months ago and honestly i'm still on the fence about it. like yeah it saves time on the initial assessment, i can spot missing shingles, flashing issues, ponding on flat roofs, all that stuff without getting up there. but the image quality when i'm trying to see something really specific like a hairline crack in a cap or checking around a chimney collar sometimes just doesn't cut it for me. i end up going up anyway.

also the liability thing is weird. my insurance guy wasn't sure if drone footage counts as a proper inspection for the report or if i still need boots on the roof. anyone else dealing with this for actual commercial work? curious what workflows people have landed on.

the liability question is the real one and it varies so much by state and what kind of roofing work you're doing. for insurance claim documentation most adjusters i've worked with actually love the drone footage because it's timestamped and gives them the full picture literally. but yeah it doesn't replace a boots inspection legally in most contexts, at least not yet. we use it as the first pass and if anything looks questionable we send someone up. cuts the amount of time guys spend on sketchy roofs by maybe 40% i'd guess.

for close detail work have you tried flying slower and getting closer? most people hover too far back. you can get surprisingly tight on a chimney with a mavic if you're not being shy about it. the 1/1.3 inch sensor on the classic is decent enough for most defect documentation.

i do commercial flat roof surveys and honestly the drone changed everything for me. before i was up on 80,000 sqft roofs for hours trying to map ponding and membrane bubbling. now i do a quick grid flight, pull it into some photogrammetry software and i have a orthomosaic with elevation data that shows me exactly where water is pooling and how bad. clients love getting an actual map instead of a guy pointing at stuff.

the close up detail thing is a fair point tho. for gutters and specific penetrations i still go manual and slow fly it. some guys are adding thermal to their workflow for moisture detection under the membrane which is pretty legit if you can justify the cost of a m2ea or similar.