so ive been doing roofing estimates for about 8 years now and we just started integrating drones into our workflow maybe 6 months ago. started with a mini 3 pro which was fine for getting a general overview but now we're doing bigger commercial jobs and im thinking we need something with better zoom or maybe a thermal option to actually find moisture intrusion and problem areas without having to physically get up there for every single square foot.

the workflow right now is basically fly the perimeter, do a grid over the flat sections, dump everything into a folder and review later. we use DJI Fly still which i know is probably not the right software for this but it works. the issue is when clients want an actual report with measurements or damage callouts we're kind of doing that manually in post which takes forever.

anyone who does this professionally ? what are you actually using? is the mavic 3 thermal worth it for roofing specifically or is that overkill. also wondering about whether we need Part 107 for all of this because our guy has it but we're not sure if subcontracting to clients counts as commercial use on our end

yeah you definitely need Part 107 if you're charging for it in any form, even bundled into an estimate service. the FAA doesn't really care about the nuance of how you're billing ? if theres compensation involved in the operation you need the cert. your guy having it is fine as long as he's the actual remote PIC on every flight, you can't just have him sign off from a desk somewhere.

on the thermal question ? the M3T is solid for roofing but honestly the entry price is steep if you're not doing it constantly. we used an Autel EVO II Dual for a while before upgrading and it was decent enough for moisture work. the key thing with thermal on roofs is timing, you want to fly about an hour after sunset when the roof is releasing heat differentially, flying at noon is mostly useless for moisture detection. a lot of guys learn that the hard way.

for reporting software look at DroneDeploy or Pix4D if you want proper orthomosaics with measurements. there's also Scanifly which is more roofing-focused and ties into some contractor CRMs. it's not cheap but if you're doing volume it pays for itself pretty quick.

we went through almost the exact same thing last year, ended up just buying the M3T and it was worth it for us but we do a lot of flat commercial roofs with EPDM and TPO where moisture is a constant issue. on pitched residential stuff the thermal is less dramatic honestly, you see hotspots but interpreting them correctly takes practice and clients sometimes don't trust the imagery unless you explain it well.

one thing nobody told me early on ? wind messes with thermal readings more than you'd think. even 10-12mph can make the data pretty noisy. we try to fly thermal stuff early morning or evening with calm conditions and that made a big difference in how clean the output looks.