A roofer climbs up, sees three cracked tiles, a failed lead soaker and forty years of tired pointing, comes down and says the job is £2,400. The customer hears a big number attached to a problem they have never actually seen, thanks you politely, and rings two more firms. You have just done a free inspection for a competitor.
Evidence closes quotes
When the same quote arrives alongside a branded report with photographs of every elevation, each defect circled, described and graded by severity, the conversation stops being about whether you are exaggerating and starts being about when the work can start. Customers are not sceptical because they distrust roofers — they are sceptical because they cannot see the roof.
Where it pays back fastest
- Insurance work: adjusters want dated, located photographs with defects distinguished from general wear. A structured report gets claims moving instead of bouncing.
- Big-ticket repairs and re-roofs, where the customer needs to justify the spend to a partner or a landlord.
- Absentee owners and letting agents who will never climb a ladder and need to make a decision remotely.
- Second opinions, where a homeowner already has a quote and wants to know whether it is fair.
- Triage before you send a van: fly it, review the photos, and only quote the jobs worth quoting.
How it works for a contractor
Upload your aerial photographs. AI marks up slipped and broken tiles, cracked or missing mortar, flashing and valley defects, gutter faults and moss. You review every detection — approve, edit, reject, or draw your own circle on anything the model missed — and add a caption to each photograph so the client knows which elevation they are looking at. Publishing the report costs one credit, from £7.40 on the 50-credit pack.
The safety and time argument
Falls from height remain the single biggest cause of fatal injury in UK construction. Every survey you fly instead of climb is a ladder you did not put up on a wet Tuesday for a job you might not even win. A full elevation set takes around twenty minutes on site, and the review takes ten minutes at a desk.
Do you need your own drone?
If you fly already, a trade account is just the reporting layer on top of what you do now. If you do not, we survey across G, ML and EH postcodes and you can either refer the homeowner to us or commission the flight yourself and put your own branding on the report. Team seats mean several surveyors can work under one company account sharing the same credit balance and job history.