See the roof before it costs you.

Drone roof surveys for homeowners, roofers, landlords and buyers. No scaffold. Nobody on the roof. Full photographic report on your desk, usually within five to seven working days of the flight.

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GVC qualified · CAA Operational Authorisation Insured for commercial operations 4K imagery & annotated reports North of England · Borders · Scotland
£0m/day

What UK insurers pay out every single day for escape-of-water damage inside buildings. Unnoticed water is expensive water.

Source: Association of British Insurers
£0bn

UK property insurance claims in 2025. Highest annual total on record.

Source: ABI, Feb 2026
1 in 5

Almost one in five construction deaths involve roof work. Falls from height — the biggest killer on site.

Source: Health & Safety Executive
£0

What scaffolding a domestic roof can cost, just to look at it. Six-week minimum hire, usually.

Typical UK rates, 2026 trade cost guides

02Who it's for

Five people. One problem:
nobody can see the roof.

Every roof decision made blind costs somebody money. We put eyes on it — high resolution, fast turnaround, nobody on the roof.

Aerial drone view of a UK house roof01Homeowners

Know your own roof.

  • See the real state of your roof — no ladders, no scaffold
  • Catch slipped tiles, moss and cracked flashing before water gets in
  • An independent look before you pay a roofer — and proof for a storm claim
Homeowner surveys & pricing →
A roofer at a work van on a northern street02Roofers

Quote without the ladder.

  • Survey and price jobs without travelling out or going up
  • Show the customer what's there — win the job on the evidence
  • No working-at-height risk for a job you've not even won yet
Roofer surveys & trade pricing →
Aerial view of a commercial flat roof03Landlords & tenants

Settle the leak argument.

  • Independent photographic condition reports for commercial roofs
  • Document leaks and defects before they turn into disputes
  • A dated record to back up dilapidations, insurance and repairs
Commercial surveys & pricing →
A For Sale board outside a terraced house04Buyers

Look on top before you sign.

  • Most home surveys only see the roof from the ground, not the covering
  • See the covering before you commit
  • A look before you commit can save a big bill later

A visual check of the covering from above — not a replacement for a RICS or structural survey.

Pre-purchase checks & pricing →
Storm-damaged roof seen from above05Insurers & loss adjusters

Dated proof, not a ladder and a guess.

  • Independent, dated photographic evidence of roof condition and storm damage
  • Assess a claim without putting anyone up a ladder
  • A clear annotated report to support or settle a claim

Visual evidence from the air to inform a claim — not a structural or loss-adjusting report.

Claim evidence — find out more →
A drone surveyor in a hi-vis vest flying a survey drone over a roof on a northern street

On the controls

Flown by a qualified operator — never subcontracted.

Every survey is flown in person: GVC-qualified, CAA-authorised and insured. No call centre, no middleman — you deal with the person who flies your roof.

03The evidence

This is what your roof
isn't telling you.

Drag the slider. Left: what a roof looks like from the ground. Right: the same roof through our lens — every defect named, graded and pinpointed.

Drone photograph of a damaged tile roof
Failed render & cracked chimney
Staining consistent with water ingress
Moss damming & debris
Slipped tile
From the ground Through our lens

What we flagged on the rightFailed render & cracked chimney · staining consistent with water ingress · moss damming & debris · a slipped tile.

Illustrative example — annotations shown for demonstration, not from a client survey.

Flat roofs hide it best.

A commercial flat roof can hold standing water, blistered membrane and blocked outlets for years — completely invisible from below — quietly working on your stock, your ceilings and your wiring. Tap the markers to see what we found on this one.

Every finding lands in your report with location, severity and a recommended action. Pass it on to whoever needs it — contractor, managing agent or adviser.

Aerial view of a commercial flat roof with ponding water
See a full sample report

04The cost of waiting

A leak never gets cheaper.

This is how one slipped tile typically plays out when nobody's looking.

Day one

A tile slips

Invisible from the ground. Water starts tracking onto the felt and battens every time it rains.

A minor repair
Months in

Insulation soaks

Wet insulation stops insulating. Around a quarter of an uninsulated home's heat goes through the roof — your heating bill pays for the leak first.

Rising energy waste
The first storm

It lets go

The average storm-damage insurance payout in 2025 was £2,450 (ABI) — and that's before the excess, the disruption and the week closed for repairs.

£2,450 avg. claim
Left long enough

Rot, mould, rewire

Saturated timbers, mould remediation, damaged stock and ceilings down. What started as one tile is now a strip-and-recover job.

Five figures

05Why drone

The old way pays for access.
You should pay for answers.

Most of a traditional roof inspection bill is spent getting a human safely up there and back down. We removed the human from the roof — and the cost of access along with them.

Scaffold / MEWP inspectionF4D drone survey
Access costScaffold typically £800–£1,500, often a 6-week minimum hire — before anyone inspects anythingNo scaffold or access hire. The drone is the access
Time on siteDays to erect, inspect and strikeUnder an hour for most roofs
RiskPeople working at height — the biggest single killer in UK constructionNobody leaves the ground
RecordA surveyor's notes and a few phone photosFull 4K image set and annotated PDF report you keep forever — orthomosaic mapping by arrangement
RepeatabilityPay for access all over againRe-fly the same flight path and compare year on year

06Pricing

No "POA". No price dance.
The value's in what it saves you.

The price is on the page — no ringing round for a number. And it's a small one next to what the survey saves you. A homeowner catches a leak before it's a re-roof; a landlord skips the scaffold bill; a buyer finds out what the roof's really worth before they commit — money back in your pocket before you've even bought the place. Whichever you are, the value lands well past the price.

Most booked
Homeowners — per property

Homes & rentals.

Terraced & semi-detached£99
Detached & bungalows£129
Large or complex roofs£179
Pre-purchase topside check£129

Every survey includes the annotated PDF report and the full image set — no paid "report add-on".

For roofers — trade rate

For regular & bulk work.

£69 per survey

Often less than the van, the fuel and two hours of your time. Quote from your desk — travel only to jobs you've already won.

Single trade survey£69
10-survey trade account£59 each
Full image pack to quote fromIncluded
Before/after proof of your workIncluded

Built for regular and clustered bookings — the rate works on volume, not one-off single jobs. Trade accounts get priority slots.

Commercial — per building

Units to estates.

Shop, office or single unitfrom £299
Warehouse & industrialfrom £449
Multi-building sites (half day)from £649
Annual re-survey plan−20%

Includes a detailed condition report for landlords, insurers and dilapidations claims. Orthomosaic roof mapping by arrangement — for visualisation, not a measured land survey.

Heritage & listed buildings£300 flat

One flat rate whatever the size — churches, listed estates and hard-access roofs, no scaffold on a listed building. Many are run by volunteers or charities, so we keep it simple. Imagery for quinquennial inspections, ready for your architect or surveyor.

Farms & agriculturalFarmer's rate

Barns, sheds and outbuildings at a supported rate, with a discount across the whole farm — and we fly drone land surveys of fields and holdings too.

These are launch rates, fixed once we confirm the job — the quote is the invoice. The only things that change it are a change you ask for, or access or airspace we can't establish, and we'll tell you first. Our published prices hold across our core patch in the North of England, the Borders and Scotland; for jobs further out, travel is priced into the quote and we confirm it before you book. Registered charities and community buildings get 25% off standard rates. Thermal leak detection is coming soon.

07Roof Watch

Don't just survey it once.
Watch it.

A one-off survey tells you where the roof is today. Roof Watch watches it: every year we come back, fly the same path, and show you what's moved — so slow damage gets caught while it's still a cheap fix, not a strip-and-recover job. You build a year-on-year record of the roof, and the longer you watch, the more that record is worth. Built for landlords, estates, schools, councils and churches — anyone with a lot of roof to look after.

See how Roof Watch works →

08More from F4D

Virtual tours,
doll's-house view.

One visit, every room. A full 3D walk-through of the inside with a doll's-house view of the whole layout, on any phone or laptop. Shot on a professional 360 camera, from £149 added to a survey.

  • Estate agents: listings buyers can walk through
  • Landlords: a dated record of the inside
  • Venues & shops: let people look round before they book
Add a virtual tour to your survey

A visual walk-through for marketing and records — not a measured survey, and not a condition or structural assessment.

3D doll's-house cutaway view of a building from a virtual tour

09How it works

Three steps. Done.

01

Tell us the address

Send the postcode and what's worrying you. We check airspace and access, then confirm a date — often within a few days.

02

We fly it

Often under an hour on site. 4K imagery across every elevation, gutter, valley and flashing visible from the air — plus anything you've specifically asked us to check.

03

Report within days

Annotated PDF report, usually within five to seven working days of the flight — every defect photographed, placed and graded, with a recommended action, and a delivery date given when we confirm the job. Hand it to whoever needs it.

Where we fly

Across the North, the Borders and Scotland.

Up here, the weather keeps its own survey schedule. Rain comes in sideways off the North Sea, the wind funnels down the Tyne and over the Cheviots, and every winter the freeze-thaw prises another crack a little wider. The old stone and slate takes the worst of it — the castles and abbeys, the Berwick walls, the long rows of Victorian terrace. We fly all of it, from the Border country to the Lakes.

Northumberland & the coast

Alnwick, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Bamburgh, Morpeth and Hexham. Castle, abbey and coastal stone that has stood centuries of North Sea weather — and the terraces beside them.

Newcastle, Tyne & Wear

Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland and both banks of the Tyne. Victorian slate, flat-roofed extensions and city-centre stock.

Durham & Teesside

Durham, Darlington, Middlesbrough, Stockton and Hartlepool — cathedral-city heritage through to industrial flat roofs.

The Scottish Borders

Kelso, Jedburgh, Melrose, Galashiels, Hawick and Peebles. The Border abbeys and listed stone, exposed to everything the hills throw down.

Cumbria & the Lakes

Carlisle, Penrith, Kendal and across the Lake District — some of the wettest weather in the country, where a roof really earns its keep.

Edinburgh, Glasgow & the Lothians

Central Scotland within reach of the Borders — Old Town tenements through to suburban semis.

On our patch and not named above? Send us the postcode — if we can get to it, we'll fly it.

Common questions

Drone roof surveys — your questions, answered.

How much does a drone roof survey cost in the UK?
At Forged 40 Digital, homeowner roof surveys start from £99, a pre-purchase topside check is £129, and commercial or flat-roof surveys start from £299. Every price is fixed and confirmed before we fly — no "POA". Across the wider UK market, most domestic drone roof surveys fall between roughly £150 and £350, with commercial work higher.
Are drone roof surveys worth it?
For most people, yes. A drone gets a close-up look at every tile, valley and flashing for a fraction of the cost of scaffold or a cherry-picker, and it catches small problems — a slipped tile, tired flashing, a blocked valley — before they become a water-ingress bill. You also get a dated photographic record to keep.
Do drone roof surveys replace a RICS or structural survey?
No. A drone roof survey is an external, visual inspection of the roof covering from above. It does not replace a RICS Level 2 or Level 3 survey or a structural survey — it complements them, covering the part of the roof those surveys can often only view from the ground.
Do you need a licence or planning permission for a drone roof survey?
You don't need planning permission for a survey. The operator does need to be properly authorised: Forged 40 Digital holds the CAA General VLOS Certificate (GVC) and an Operational Authorisation, and carries commercial drone insurance, so flights near buildings and people are flown legally.
Can a drone roof survey be used for an insurance claim?
Yes. Dated, timestamped imagery from a CAA-authorised, insured operator can support an insurance claim — for example after storm damage. We provide annotated, dated evidence of the roof's condition; the insurer or loss adjuster assesses the claim itself.
How long does a drone roof survey take?
Most surveys take under an hour on site. Your annotated report normally follows within five to seven working days of the flight; tell us if it's time-critical, such as a purchase deadline, and we'll prioritise it.
Can you inspect a roof without scaffolding or going on the roof?
Yes — that's the whole point. The drone does the climbing. There's no scaffold to hire, no cherry-picker and nobody on your roof, which removes both the cost and the working-at-height risk.
What's included in the report?
A clear, annotated PDF: high-resolution photographs of every elevation, each defect marked on the roof and graded Red, Amber or Green, with what it is and the recommended action — plus the full 4K image set.

The roof already knows.
Find out what it knows.

Send us the address and a best number — we'll come back with a flight date and a fixed price. No scaffold. No surprises.

Book a survey See a sample report

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