Effective property management is all about getting ahead of potential problems and handling them quickly when they do arise.
Drones are fast becoming a necessary part of that process, providing property management teams with powerful inspection capabilities and situational awareness at the touch of a button.
Here are a few reasons why drones should be added to your property management inspection toolkit.
Proactive maintenance and inspection
From commercial buildings to homes and parking lots, every type of property comes with different risks and requirements.
Many properties require regular inspections, which can include checks on rooftops and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) units. These regular checks ensure that issues are caught before they turn into major problems.
Rooftops need to be scanned for visible damage, debris, standing water, or other obvious issues. Exterior structural components, including vents, skylights and chimneys, should be inspected for damage, missing components, rust, and rot. If issues to these components are not discovered fast, small leaks can turn into expensive structural damage.
Drone technology and additional payloads, including thermal sensors, are rapidly being adopted by property management professionals tasked with carrying out these inspections. They can be used to scale buildings quickly, gathering actionable data in minutes rather than hours.
Cutting costs
Carrying out regular checks comes at a cost. For certain types of property inspection, using a drone to gather high-resolution images and videos saves money compared to traditional methods.
A roof inspection of a commercial property can take hours to plan and carry out safely. A drone can be used as a preliminary investigative tool to pinpoint known problems, removing the time needed to safely scout a structure before repairs are carried out.
Because they are quickly deployed and able to stream imagery back to a team on the ground, the time spent carrying out inspections can be dramatically reduced. In some cases, the reduced cost of inspections with a drone makes more regular inspections viable, better protecting assets in the long term.
Improving crew safety
Working at height comes with inherent risk and accidents do occasionally happen. For everyday inspections and those on more challenging structures, drones provide a safer alternative to manual rooftop and structural checks.
At the very least, they provide crews with a way to assess the situation remotely, before committing to gearing up for a closer look.
According to the World Health Organization, the United States leads the world in ladder deaths and there are more than 100,000 emergency room-treated injuries caused by falls from ladders each year.
Employee health and safety is rarely factored into ROI calculations when setting up a drone program. It shouldn’t be that way; keeping your inspection team out of harm’s way is invaluable.
DroneBase provides high-resolution aerial images, video, and maps for property managers across the country. Our network of pilots is on hand to gather the insights you need to identify potential issues and take preventive action, cutting costs in the long term and improving the safety conditions of your staff in the process.
Find out more about our property management services here.
