How to Use Drones for Home Inspections

[Music] hi I'm Ben from internachi and I'm here with Dave Krauss from influential drones and they provide drone training for Internet you members all over the country so if you're an internet remember your think about doing drones stop get trained and certified or maybe it's licensed you'll have to get licensed yes and it's regulated you can't just buy one of these drones that you're holding in your hand off Amazon and start flying it around not unless you're trying to get in trouble no you can so what are we gonna do in this training video coming up well some of things we're gonna do in the video is we're right here at the house of horrors we're gonna take this drone we're gonna fly it around really inside this area and then we're also gonna meet up with an intern at sea member have some conversations with them and later on we're gonna take his drone and our drone off site and show this thing in real-world practice at a real house a real house out here in Boulder and your certified or license to do that I'm licensed to do that we've already notified the police we've done all the community notification properly everything is legal we're ready to go so if I am an internet remember I'm a certified professional inspector and I want to get into drones what do I do do I contact you should I go online does FAA have some information so the FAA does have a regular information website yeah it would be FAA drone zone you can get some information on there or just go to FAA gov you could also call our office which is eight five six to eight one seven five four five influential drones calm you or visit this website at night org influential drones so if you're an internet remember be careful just don't buy a drone and start flying around for your commercial purposes it's a regulated thing so get trained and certified and I'm here with Dave Krause influential drones and we're gonna have some fun we're gonna show you guys how to fly safely nice place it thank you appreciate it hi everyone my name is Dave Krause influential drones today I'm here at internachi headquarters in Boulder Colorado behind me is the house of horrors and beside me is Evan Elliott Evan owns Elliott home inspections Inc and the reason why we're sitting together is to talk about drones as I understand it you have a drone and you're for your business can you tell me about it yes I can I have a unique typhoon h plus it's a hexacopter means it has six props six motors it has good camera capabilities but it does not have infrared / thermal imaging so in my hands I'm holding a maverick Enterprise dual this is a quadcopter the reason why I chose to bring this one today is because it has thermal capabilities there are two lenses on this camera RGB and thermal there are other brands out there that make portable drones that have the same accessories however this is the one what we chose to bring today today we're going to talk about the benefits of drones with thermal image capabilities for home inspectors and the home inspection industry so let's get right to it okay Dave sounds good so talk about a little bit the process that you go through before you launch the drone obviously we take it out of the box we set it up but let's let's start from your or your landing gear your landing zone standpoint how do you set up your landing zone to make sure that the community knows that you're operating safely and that you're about to perform a drone operation well as a home inspector I pull up with my pickup truck that says Elliott home inspections on it I put a cone on either end of the vehicle where I'm parked then I put in a landing area that's a bright orange circular pad that's waited on the perimeter for where I will take off and land my drone then i additionally put cones in proximity to that at a reasonable distance - it's more or less clean my space and deter others from entering and then you obviously you talk to the property owners and make sure that you have consent to fly yes and when you do a general flight operation some of the things we're taking in consideration that we're using the drone for would be what um my thoughts are rooftops gutters skylights chimneys maybe if we did if we're looking at a second-story structure do you look at the windows in the sidings from another elevation I can it depends you know in some cases that's prohibitive because they'll have trees mature Landscaping others no problem want to avoid running into trees and things like that but yes it's good for anything that's high up daesh's around the perimeter in particular if those corners where water typically gets in from a failing gutter it's one of the first places that is a problem on the fascia [Music] so now what about obviously the tops of roofs I mean there are certain singles that we can't walk on for safety purposes and even just the pitches in a roof you know talk to me about how a drone helps you in that area I would imagine it saves some time as well drone does save time it's a lot of work and time to safely set up ladders take them off the truck put them back on the truck and position them safely which is often again prohibitive depending on the landscaping around you and the conditions the advantages of the drone are primarily safety and efficiency again back to the ladder so it's less time to use a drone rather than setting up ladders it's safer than actually physically mounting the roof that means climbing up on the roof and walking the roof low-pitch roofs six twelve or less they are very dangerous it's still a roof though exactly now we're you asked about the materials metal roofs high-end slate roofs shake shingle roofs can be very conducive to mold and they're very slippery and they work they're fragile too they can break a lot of roofing materials shouldn't be walked on directly even you're 80 90 percent of roofs that are asphalt shingles they get too hot in the summer and you can damage them by walking on them and they get too cold in the winter because they also they become brittle then we also have copper roofs as well correct and then obviously when you're looking at a different level house sometimes you have you know a first storey roof that will tie into a second-story roof and now it's unsafe to actually put a ladder between the stories it's tempting but you don't have to have that temptation into the drum and I would imagine the same holds true also when we were talking earlier about looking down and checking gutters instead of hanging over the edge or moving a ladder from place to place the drone could just hover in place and take a look at things for you it's a beautiful thing Dave I think that drone and I can cover all those gutters lickety-split really quick you can see right in there you can tell immediately if they're cleaning or cluttered up with weaves and you can tell also that they're just coated with gravel from your fault roof which is an indicator of the age of the roof because the gravel fills in the gutter and you can know that you have an older roof or a newer roof and back to G these need to be hosed out by a professional gutters a cleaning person that's pretty interesting that you mentioned that because I know on my own house when I clean my gutters I saw that sediment in there and I had not known that so it's that it's interesting yeah the more gravel in there the more indication of either a lot of stress on the roof usually it's just things working loose from general snow and water erosion if it was from hail you'd know it because pretty much you're gonna be looking for a new roof if you're seeing those dents and dings from large hail anyway so have you had a chance to take a look at a thermal camera and see what the capabilities of that are a thermal camera on a drone yes I have not myself used that I do use infrared thermal imaging around homes but that's a different device that attaches to its handheld rather than on my throne talk to me about the value of that from the ground obviously it's something that you know you have a different vantage point but as a home inspector that thermals got to be invaluable for certain things it is and it does help me find those thermal anomalies that lead me to further investigation which is moisture additional temperature checks get out the moisture meters and do comparisons and comparable areas to determine that indeed this is an anomaly of high moisture content the drone with a infrared thermal imaging would be an advantage so some of the things that a thermal drone brings to the table is we can obviously look behind stucco we can look behind siding we can see if there's water damage we could do the same we're looking at rooftop shingles however of course depending on what the rooftop material is made of we are not going to be able to in most in some cases penetrate right you're also gonna have some situations with the drone where you're able to you find hot spots or heat loss spots which would be a direct result of a problem with insulation yes sometimes that also indicates that there's an open area on the structure where critters can get into the house so we have in the past used drones with a thermal imager and we can see a beast worm inside the walls of the house from the exterior you know obviously that doesn't work with a brick house but it does obviously with the woodland well I'll tell you what how about we take a long would we take a walk through the house of horrors and you show me some things about it and we see what we can apply using a drone [Music] Trevon as we get out here on the balcony how about we imagine a drone being out here in the space over here and as it's looking down on the rooftop let's talk about the advantages a drone can offer well there are a lot of advantages I if I was going to use the drone here to try and look at the problems of potential problems I would first come in maybe from this put the drone in this position over here and then I could see the fascia I could see the drip edge I could see the rooftop I could check that the flashing is laying above roofing materials as it should be I could look at my favorite trouble spot which is where the gutter ends here at the corner of the soffits or rather the fascia and then I would change positions and come over this way and then I could get an angle on this this roof section again the corners the drip edge the overhang of the roofing materials all the usual suspects when one's taking a look at roofing structure to determine if there's any potential issues and then again if we had thermal imaging we would be able to see the water damage that is below the shingles we would also be able to see heat loss if let's say insulation was to sag lower down into the wall we can see the difference in temperature at the top we can see other things as far as water damage and that would be all so how about we take a look at so another area over here at the house of horrors okay got to love that thermal imaging check out all those temperature and temperature anomalies and then we can follow up on it so now we're looking down on the roof in the area that we were just standing upon I can see a little bit more the siding and whatnot and I actually think this would be a great use for a drone it would be let's take a look at another location another place to look is those valleys valleys are often a fail point if they aren't properly installed and the thermal imaging be a great help with that especially if it's been moist lately so here's another exposed roof that we're taking a look at obviously the thermal imager will be able to see under this paper you'll be able to see other things that are going on if there were singles the drone could see what is happening under I like that it's that we're looking at the gutters as well yeah and this gravel that's here we could pick that up with our drone you could actually see the temperature differentials you can that will hold a lot more heat than this reflective white grey painted interior lining on this gutter for example so that's another great thing to point out is when you start using a thermal imager for example if we had a downspout that was clogged and the water was congested in this area here the drone would see the clogged source and we'd be able to identify it we'd also be able to potentially clear the passageway yes let's take a look over here at some of the shingles so now looking at some of these shingles right here I'm sorry I can't describe all of them but I would imagine a lot of these is not good to walk on you know these are a fairly resilient composite material but they're potentially slippery and again this is a more less well a very resistant one it's the shape shingles that cedar shingles that I'm reluctant to walk on they have a high slip rate they can also be loosed from their attachment points because they are prone to splitting where they're nailed in a guy thinks he's got good footing and the whole shingle moves well the surface isn't covered with any kind of mold algae or moss so what are we looking at here this this looks like some sort of is it a is it a terracotta it's I think this is a cement material meaning a cast kind of formed cement extruded and pressed into shape these are fragile you can hear through that ring it's like just think of crock where if you walk on these again you can potentially crack and loosen and they can slip and if they're at a steep angle even if they were safe to walk on you wouldn't want to be walking on that but I say if it would be wet it's you know it's very slippery and so a drone keeps you from damaging the roof hurting yourself etc so tell me about this one over here what are we looking at again another cemento style this is a interlocking tile rather than your more traditional southwestern look the surface looks very smooth I would imagine it's slippery and prone to cracking under on focused hit wheat the professional roofers they'll span these types of areas with materials that are designed to be walked on so basically they'll put out a trellis like a ladder structure or supportive not quite scaffolding but they will suspend their weight across to spread the load that's right all right and this looks like another some sort of terracotta these are closer to your traditional terracotta they don't look like they're obviously this is as wide as the other one we looked at so I would imagine it's a little bit more vulnerable to break this is a fired clay and it is fragile under load of like a human foot a lot of pounds per square inch every step we take this is one of my favorites this is obviously slate this is I know this from my own experience you need to be careful walking on this and it can get quite slippery this is another great example of the use of a drone and slate is fragile and it is slippery and a drone is perfect for handling a roofing roof top inspection that is slate so one of the things we didn't see as far as surfaces but I am noticing here as from the undercoat is copper sometimes copper is used for the surfaces of roofs and that is also something that's dangerous to walk on so that's the slate let's see what else we can find over here okay oh I know this one there you have a classic asphalt shingle got slight architectural details to it it's not absolutely a standard three tab this is what we most commonly see though as a basic material is this asphalt felted and we can use thermal imaging on this also to determine again the heat loss from poor insulation and the moisture that would be in areas that are leaking and moisture gets back in there and holds in that wood and that should show up in your thermal imaging so obviously this is one of the more common rooftop surfaces but talk to me also about pitch as I understand it the steeper the pitch the harder it is to walk on this should be a great example or use of a drone exactly it would once you have a pitch that's more than 612 I won't walk it right and if it's high I won't walk it not that I'm afraid of the height want some on a lower roof it's getting up there doesn't have a roof hatch I'm going up ladders and ladders are a very dangerous thing it's one of the most common areas of incidents where home inspectors are hurt so let's take a look at some of the other places around this house I see right here we got some skylights yes we do obviously skylights similar to even solar panels is something that you you need to be careful of when you're around it's a vulnerability in the roof so there would be some potential for water getting in a thermos a thermal image could help identify that and likewise we could do an inspection heat loss and other problems with the unit itself I'm thinking this is either a bathroom event or it could be a a kitchen vent I don't recall what is below it that I do know as a vent stack obviously the drone can take a look at that could see things around it and you can identify stuff all the roof penetrations are prime suspects for water issues moisture problems and failures that will occur in time depending on the installation if it was done properly in the first place or not so I guess the last question I have for you is do you include drone photos in your final report to your customer and how do you feel that that adds value to your business well I do include drone photos of rooftops and all the penetrations be they vents even be skylights which is essentially a large penetration through the roof barrier that is to keep moisture out I always include all those photos in my reports and of course it's benefiting me as a home inspector because that's the service they've hired me for right I would imagine it's a it's a great competitive advantage for you it is I mean I appreciate you taking the time to show me the house of horrors over here that's my pleasure so how about we go on-site and we talk about the use of drones okay [Music] hello this is Dave Krause influential drones I'm here with Evan Elliott from Elliott home inspections Inc we are out here in front of this house with a typhoon H drone and we've already notified police and local law enforcement that we are going to be doing a flight operation right now we're gonna go fly this drone there we go so let me just tell you real quickly about this drone after he starts it up what's gonna happen is all six props are gonna start spinning the unique six prop drone is very unique because if one of the props actually fails the drone is still gonna stay airborne whereas a quadcopter which has four four propellers in the event that one of the propellers or the motors fails the drone is coming out of the sky so whenever you're dealing with a drone that has more than four props it's a lot more reliable and it's a lot more stable and higher winds the other thing that's good about this unique drone is that it has retractable landing gear so it'll give you uninterrupted access or views to what the drone is seeing yeah they're like the landing gear doesn't get in the view of the camera that way when the landing gear is retracted all right Evan let's start this drone up okay here we go I'm just gonna get out at about six feet and see if it stays there stay up come up with that again so you're gonna check your forward and backward movement and you nuts back and we have forward I also want you to y'all side to side to make sure that your controls and your stability is proper let's do a 360 of the drone how does that feel to you feel like you have good control yeah okay let's attract the landing gear and head on up there we go we have video so a lot of times when you do inspections what we recommend is starting at a certain corner and working your way around the house whether you go in a clockwise movement or a counterclockwise movement is really up to your personal preference as long as you cover it you get full coverage of the property bring a camera view down a little bit my gimbal stuck camera problem alright so what's the problem we have here sure you're not getting their camera to pan up and down I'm gonna bring it down and see what that is okay so in this situation because the drone is not operating properly we're gonna bring it down take a quick look at it safety is always important so let's take a moment here and test your skill see if you can land on the H oh yeah now right now we don't have a lot of wind so the landing the landing pad is actually staying in a good position if there was a higher wind we have to be a little more cautious when you fly it's best to obviously stake that down this one actually has a V cable going all the way around it now what is wrong with that camera so what happened was we actually had a door that was open in the back of the drone which gives us access to the memory card and as a result of that door being open the drone was unable to pan the camera down this is a great example and a reason why we always pre-check the drone and we make sure that drone is always safe to fly standard things that you do prior to flight is obviously you secure the propellers make sure your arms are in place make sure the camera is stable and obviously the landing gear is secure it was a minor oversight that the memory door was open however now that we have corrected the problem we're ready to launch again okay here we go we're starting the drone up and under normal circumstances we're actually going to check our positioning again before we go up on higher elevation it's always good to check if the drone is operating properly before we take it high in the air and the reason being is quite simple if the drone has a problem it's only gonna fall four feet there's not gonna be any injuries or damages to property if the drone is a higher distance in the air and it fell out of the sky obviously then we would have property damage let's take it on up okay just put that where we want it check our camera cameras doing what it should do I have virtually lift the landing gear as I go up so now some of the drones go depending on model will automatically retract and lower their landing gear as you're flying and we come down here if we were gonna be taking pictures of this and I changed my position to keep my reference to the building okay I noticed you always stand facing the rear of the drone that's a good habit to get into helps with orientation and then if you were doing a shoot of this well we would adjust our camera accordingly and take captures as we paused intermittently on the roof for specific areas we might get to that stack there we turn to the right a little bring it into the view there it is maybe get a little closer and take a picture of those areas and then we would come down in on that and remember when we get back home to the office we can enlarge these images and see even more detail than we're seeing right now on a sunny day on this street so now do you get into the habit of taking pictures or do you always constantly record video I primarily take stills videos are kind of for fun or a complementary to stick in the report taking a look at this house right now we've already started with the corner we've glanced at the gutters and now we looked at the event stack over there what else do you think we should take a look at now let's take a look at the ridge you now when you're looking at the ridge with the drone what in particular are you looking for looking for damage to the shingles that they're not curling up that they're not improperly nailed sometimes you'll see that they're nailed and they're caulked I'd tell the customer that or the would-be buyer that they need to be aware of those areas as potential leaking later because caulk will shrink and crack so now if we had a thermal imager which we will launch the other drone and actually take a look the thermal imager will actually see if there's water damage underneath the roof shingles yes it would also see it behind stucco and behind siding the other benefit of using a thermal imager when you're looking at the property is you're able to act the arguable to see heat loss and issues with insulation another thing I may interject is if you have a variable power option on your drone I like to take the power down so now if I move left or right I don't suddenly move three or five feet by accident I mean a lower power mode so for example if I go up now with high power wow I go up fast and if I take it to the lower power and go up it just it ascends much slower same with coming down and that translates to all other maneuvers right now it's in low power off and I go kind of middle so it's always important when you fly the drone because as soon as you're an inch or off off the land you are in federal airspace so I think it's a great habit that you're getting into of controlling your momentum and the speed of your aircraft for safety absolutely it's all about safety first everything we do in home inspection safety of the inspector safety of the residents safety of the public and there we have a nice picture for example here of that corner we could even get closer to it you take a snapshot gives us an idea of the condition of that area of the roof so I'm interested in actually seeing how you would go around since we have a tree in the front yes would you wrap wide or would you go up and over and point the camera down how do you find that it's best for you to take the picture you need I keep in line of sight I want to see what I'm trying to take imagery of so in this case I'd back up here more to get the rest of this house I can still see my drone for that back roof on that garage attached garage confidently from here and still have no I'm getting good images I'm not losing sight of my drone the other side of that house beyond the ridge clearly that's obstructed I would leave my drone hovering for a minute or maybe you know reposition it closer to where I'm going avoiding the trees now I have it right midline the ridge on top of the house I can watch it from where I am go around this tree move up the street here 50 feet and now from where I'm standing I can see this other side of the roof on the house and begin to monopoly and safely maneuver my drone correct so now if you notice I actually stayed where I was standing because federal law requires that you always have to have your eyes on the drone because we are flying together I allowed Evan to walk to a safe distance where he could actually see the drone again and now that he has eyes on it I'm gonna walk towards Evan and then I would come down back up a little lower now I have eyes on the drone and we both have eyes together and inspect this side of the building and again we have clear views of the roof roofers tie off looking pivot around and take a look at the all the penetrations in the roof on this side so right now what's happening is we have a low battery warning generally what you do when the battery is low is we bring it down to swap everything out we're gonna actually land the drone swap the battery and put it back in the air drones have set special safety precautions such as low battery warnings which help us to determine safe operations and keep the drone in the air that's right on this drone we get 15 20 minutes of operation per battery per cycle and when we get to the 30s we get the warning to come down the concern is that this drone will return to home on its own if I don't bring it back before the batteries dangerously low so what what percentage of battery are we at right now right now we're at 31 when I first started it the return it was at 38 so it goes fast when it gets to 28 or 32 it will return itself and I don't like that because it often it will do line of sight to get there it'll go up so high and then do a line of sight and that's a potential collision with other options so it's important to stay on top of that now we've landed it we turn it off and we can put a new battery and fly again for 15 20 minutes so while we have the drone on the ground we're gonna real quickly swap out the battery which goes in the back of the unit and what's important to note is that there are different brands of drones but since Evan is flying this unique version we're just going to talk again about some of the safety points the propellers spin clockwise and counter clockwise direction when you put them on you lock them in place one of the things that I particularly like about the unique brand is the fact that if the propeller is missing or the armature is down the drone will recognize that so now we got the props back on it looks like and then the drone is powered up we're ready to take off again let's take a safe distance from the drone and where will we fly this time well what is the maximum elevation that you can take this drone in the boulder area or an airspace in general 400 feet 399 so how about we take it to about 390 feet we look straight down over the property we show this drone how we show everyone how high this drone can fly okay all right so we're going to start this take it up to 390 feet we know that we're in Class G airspace we're gonna take a look straight down on the property are you ready to start we're ready okay props are spinning you're ready okay so we've confirmed my movement of the drone once again now we're raising the legs and we're gonna take the drone up in the air position where I don't have the Sun so much in my eyes here we go and we need to pan our camera down to see the ground there we go now we can see our takeoff area and we are gonna go up the maximum legal altitude three keep an eye out for birds any other object in the sky that may be in our area of flight we're at 200 - 35 - 68 70 80 350 365 370 368 okay let's bring her back down there we go and get those we gear down there we go let's bring it back to the pad so what we're gonna do right now is turn the drone off because we're out in the heat of the Sun because it's got a blackbody it's always gonna risk overheating so now that the drone is turned off and we've confirmed it's off for safety I'm gonna pull the battery and we're gonna walk this drone into shade to hot operating ceilings 104 and I guess that includes the body so we flew the Maverick to enterprise duel to show the thermal capabilities of the drone so right now we have the drone hovering over the property and we're going to switch over to a thermal view which will allow us to help see heat loss and other issues of course it's in the middle of the day and it's pretty sunny outside so we're not gonna get optimum results we took the drone up to 390 feet just to get a total site survey of the land however in most situations you can do that about 150 feet one of the things we always do to conclude our operations is to reach out to local law enforcement it's always good to get in a habit of doing that just as a courtesy and also so that they're aware of the operation so I'm about to call the police right now yeah hi this is Dave Krause influential drones how you doing today not too bad I just wanted to let you know that we've concluded the drone operation over here in Fredericks town and we are going the drones are safely stored and we're ready to put them away no problem at all thank you and have a good day just like that that's all you have to do [Music] hi this is Dave Krause influential drones today I'm sitting here at my office in New Jersey with my business partner dr. Steven Davis Steve is an FAA certified flight instructor and a pilot of well over 20 years Steve how many people have you taught over the years a number over 100 young this was a oldest over 80 a few of them so you saw the video my interaction with that of an elliot over out there in Boulder there was a few things that I missed let's talk about the importance of actually working in parot and getting instruction from an FAA certified flight instructor such as yourself you were just answering questions you went through certain examples you took the time to talk to Evan and Ben you were discussing the best practices for the drones and how to work around the house of ours and you did a great job in future videos we'll try and dress more about the best practices how to work safely and notify the public and the police so that no time do you get in trouble the importance of an operation is that you set up your game plan so that you know from start to finish what you have to do you go through a systematic process the aviation industry the commercial aviation industry they've got a very safe record they use something called aeronautical decision-making where they go through and a systematic approach so that the outcome is never in doubt and they have some of the highest records and you must use a checklist you must use they have a cockpit will call a crew resource management so they're taught about judgment and their talk more about attitudes then the drone pilot does so a part 61 man the pilot is going to educate you so that you have the best safest practices that are tried-and-true in the commercial aviation industry so I mean really the FAA has one of the best or the aviation industry has one of the best safety records and Steve and I are actually part of the FAA safety team it's called a fast team as a matter of fact influential drones is the only drone company in the United States that is an industry member with the FAA for safety teams obviously we we practice safety and the importance of checklist aeronautical decision-making and communication with the crew so Steve one of the things that you know happens with our business is we get to frequent phone calls one of them in particular is how do I get my drone license so what are the qualifications that are needed to get that well that's a good question it's relatively easy anybody can get a remote pilot certification you have to be at least 16 years old read write and understand the English language the FAA has a knowledge test that you must pass and they have testing centers that are set up we've helped numerous people we've had everyone pass it's not all that difficult and that's one of the things we've had a very good success rate helping people pass and get their exam and the other common question that we get a lot is what's right for us what drone should we choose so we have here three drones and it's just really for demonstration purposes this one draft that back here is a unique 520 it is the same drone that is similar to the typhoon body shape wise as whatever was using during the demonstration there's nothing wrong with any of these drones the primary difference is obviously in personal comfort personal preference and a couple features we're not going to go through features right now as far as which drones have thermal or not but what you're going to notice is the smaller drones are a lot more portable in size this is a Alltel evo by Alto robotics and that is a Mavic to drone by DJI so that concludes our video and we thank you for watching it additional information can be found on the Nachi website or by visiting influential drones comm we are licensed pilots ourselves we are members of the FAA facts team Steve is an FAA certified flight instructor we help work with community colleges and other educational institutions to help make people fly safely Thank You members Thank You inspectors Thank You internachi thank you Steve [Music] [Music]

Channel: International Association of Certified Home Inspectors (InterNACHI)

Views: 63,121

Keywords: International association of certified home inspectors, InterNACHI, NACHI, become a home inspector, home inspection training, home inspection education, gromicko, drone, drone training, drone inspection, influential drones

Id: EOxuNWr1dqM

Length: 38min 21sec (2301 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 10 2019