In the fight to save and maintain old buildings the latest technology has been a boon. Drones have really come into their own especially in areas difficult to access for searching out problems early.
Tim Butler Entrepreneur, Property Surveyor and Managing Director of Call the Butler Ltd has been speaking about the use of remote controlled drones to inspect buildings both internally and externally.
Historic England is also a fan of the new technology with them being the organisation that looks after the historical monuments and heritage of England from Palaces to Memorials and Gardens. They also value the use of drones or more correctly UAV’s, (Unmanned Ariel Vehicles) in their conservation and maintenance programmes of monuments and ancient buildings.
Since using them the organization soon recognized that the images in still and/or video format along with the data they can capture through the use of UAV’s can add considerable value across all manner of applications in their work. This would typically include things like the monitoring of a property’s condition; for use in presentations and displays which can be used in their own multimedia advertising and information delivery. And of course it goes without saying, for when they or any organization are carrying out surveys, area and terrain mapping, recording and reporting data for historic value and information dissemination.
Butler finished by saying: “The UAV offers us the nearest thing to the mythical “sky hook” we have sought for years and the ability to view inaccessible areas of buildings, roofs, chimneys hidden valleys and gutters from the safety of the ground. Drones are becoming an indispensable tool in establishing the condition of hidden areas particularly in period properties.
The Thermal Imaging Camera in particular affords us the opportunity to accurately establish the current condition of a property at a specific point in time. From there we can create a meaningful base to develop and implement a proactive maintenance regime to maintain a property to its best advantage.
Locating problems at an early stage and dealing with their repair will enable timely maintenance to prevent small faults becoming larger problems (before they normally become apparent) making them more economic to repair. This will ensure that damage to the fabric of the building is minimized as part of a sensible maintenance regime.