so ive been doing roofing estimates for about 6 years and my buddy keeps telling me to just get a drone and stop climbing up on everything. i finally caved and picked up a mavic 3 classic a few months ago and honestly the time savings alone are pretty insane. what used to take me 45 minutes with a ladder and walking the whole thing now takes maybe 12-15 depending on the size.

the thing i wasnt expecting is how much better the documentation is. clients actually trust the assessment more when you can pull up photos and video showing exactly where the damage is. had one guy who was arguing with me about whether he needed new flashing around his chimney and i just pulled up the footage on my ipad right there and he was like oh yeah okay that does look bad.

my question is more about workflow i guess ? how are you guys handling the deliverables? im currently just exporting clips and photos and dumping them in a google drive folder but it feels pretty janky. is there software specifically for roofing inspection reports or is everyone just doing something similar to what im doing

we switched to dronelink for flight planning and then use a thing called roofr for the actual reporting side, they integrate reasonably well but its not perfect. honestly the google drive method isnt as embarrassing as you think ? a lot of guys are still doing that. the main upgrade i would suggest is just being more consistent about your naming conventions and folder structure before you worry about software. ive seen people spend a bunch of money on platforms and still have a chaotic mess because the underlying organization wasnt there first.

the mavic 3 classic is solid for this by the way, the hassel with that camera for roof work is sometimes the dynamic range in bright sun can blow out lighter colored shingles if youre not dialing in your exposure manually. shoot in d-log if you arent already and grade it back, makes the texture way more readable.

yeah im in a similar boat, just started doing inspections on the side and the client reaction when you show them the footage is totally different than trying to describe damage verbally. one thing i noticed though ? do you have your part 107 sorted out? asking because a few areas ive flown for clients have turned out to be in controlled airspace and i had to get auth through laanc which added some time to the process. just worth double checking if you havent already since youre doing this commercially