so ive been doing residential roofing inspections with my mavic 3 for about 8 months now and its honestly changed how i work. the adjusters i work with love getting the footage and the stills but ive been thinking about whether im leaving money on the table by not going more pro with the setup.

my main thing is i can get good enough shots for shingle damage, flashing issues, ridge lines etc but when i get to commercial flat roofs or anything with TPO or EPDM i feel like the standard RGB camera just isnt catching everything. a buddy of mine swore by thermal for finding moisture intrusion but i have no idea if thats actually worth the cost of jumping to something like the M30T or even renting a thermal payload.

anyone actually doing this commercially with thermal? is it as useful as people say or is it one of those things that sounds better on paper

thermal is the real deal for flat commercial roofs, not even close. the amount of moisture you miss with just RGB is embarassing once you see the same roof with a radiometric thermal camera. i switched to the M30T about a year ago and honestly it paid for itself within like 3 months just from upselling the thermal reports to property managers. the trick is you gotta fly it about an hour after sunset when the wet areas are still releasing heat and the dry membrane has already cooled ? if you fly midday you get so much solar loading that everything looks hot and its basically useless.

for shingle residential stuff your mavic is probably fine, but the moment someone asks you about a 50,000 sqft warehouse roof you really want that thermal. some guys rent the payload for the big jobs and thats honestly not a bad way to start before committing to buying.

following this bc im in a similar spot. just got part 107 and trying to figure out if roofing inspection is actually viable as a side thing or if the market is already too saturated in most areas