Some Burlington Roofs Are Too Big to Inspect Well on Foot
A 120,000-square-foot distribution roof off Industrial Avenue in Williston, a multi-tier office building near the Burlington waterfront, a plant in the Pine Street manufacturing corridor: walking every drain basin and seam on roofs like these eats most of a workday, bruises the membrane with foot traffic, and still leaves blind spots where ponding water never quite reveals itself from standing height. We fly them instead. A drone carrying a high-resolution visual camera and a radiometric thermal sensor covers the whole roof at a steady altitude in a fraction of the time, and it sees something boots never will, which is where water is already hiding inside the assembly. The output is not a folder of pretty pictures. It is a decision tool for the most expensive call you make on a commercial roof.
Mapping Trapped Moisture Without Touching the Roof
This is the part that matters most on Vermont's large low-slope roofs. When water gets past the membrane it does not pool politely at the point of entry. It migrates sideways and saturates the insulation, sometimes drifting yards from the actual breach before it ever drips into the building below. Wet insulation behaves differently than the dry insulation around it: it holds heat. After a sunny day, as the roof gives up its warmth into a cool Burlington evening, the saturated areas stay warm longer and glow on the infrared image while the dry field cools off and goes dark. We fly the thermal pass during that post-sunset cool-down window, and the result is a moisture map showing the exact footprint and extent of wet insulation sitting under a membrane that looks perfectly intact from above.
That map is worth real money because it reshapes the scope. Without it, a roof with a handful of leaks turns into an argument: patch it, recover it, or tear it off? With a thermal survey in hand, we can see that the wet area is, say, eight percent of the roof and confined to two corners, which points to a targeted insulation replacement and repair rather than a six-figure tear-off. Or the survey shows saturation spread across half the field, and now everyone understands why recovering over wet insulation would simply be burying the problem to fail again in a few years. The imaging takes the guesswork out of the decision that costs the most to get wrong.
The Conditions Have to Be Right
Infrared roof scanning is not point-and-shoot. It needs a surface that has dried off, a clear sky to drive the daily heating-and-cooling cycle, low wind, and a real temperature swing into the evening. Vermont hands us plenty of clear days for it, but we schedule the flight around the weather and the cool-down rather than around the calendar, because a thermal pass run at the wrong hour produces an image that looks scientific and means nothing. We tell you up front when conditions will support a valid survey and when they will not.
Documenting Storm Damage for an Insurance Claim
After a wind event off Lake Champlain or a hail-bearing summer storm rolls through Chittenden County, the clock starts on your insurance claim and the roof is often the worst place to be standing. Aerial documentation lets us record the damage thoroughly and safely. We produce GPS-tagged imagery that pinpoints hail-impact density across the field, maps wind-lifted or displaced membrane and disturbed edge metal, and captures damage to rooftop units and flashings, the kind of organized, location-stamped record a commercial property adjuster expects to open. For a contested claim, that imagery gives us a defensible basis to stand behind the scope rather than negotiating from memory. We pair this with our insurance claim coordination so the documentation and the claim move together instead of in separate directions.
Building a Reroof Spec on Measured Reality
Before we or any contractor prices a reroof on a large Burlington building, the aerial survey confirms the true roof area, locates and counts every penetration, curb, and skylight, and records existing conditions for the drawings. When the specification is built from measured reality instead of a guess pulled off an old plan set, the bids come in tighter and there are far fewer surprise change orders once the tear-off is underway. The flight also creates a clean baseline for a roof-asset file you can measure against on the next annual inspection, so a developing problem area shows up as a year-over-year change in the imagery rather than as a ceiling stain in a tenant's office.
- Full visual and radiometric thermal coverage of large low-slope roofs with no crew foot traffic
- Post-sunset moisture mapping that locates saturated insulation under an intact-looking membrane
- GPS-tagged storm-damage documentation formatted the way commercial adjusters expect
- Verified roof-area, penetration, and curb counts for accurate reroof specifications
- A repeatable aerial baseline for year-over-year roof-asset tracking
Flying It Legally and Safely Near the Airport
Burlington's airspace is not a free-for-all. Burlington International Airport sits right in South Burlington, and a sizable share of the commercial roof stock we inspect falls inside controlled airspace where a flight needs FAA authorization through the LAANC system before the drone ever leaves the ground. Our flights run under FAA Part 107 by a certificated remote pilot, with the airspace clearance pulled, the flight area kept clear of people, and the aircraft operated within the rules for that location. In practice it means a little planning ahead of an inspection near the airport, and it means you are never the party holding liability for an unauthorized flight over your tenants or the public. If you manage a large roof in Burlington and you are tired of inspections that miss the wet spots until they reach the ceiling, an aerial thermal survey is the faster, safer way to learn what you actually have. Call 802-744-0749 or email team@commercialroofingvermont.com to schedule a flight.
Common Questions About Drone Roof Inspections
How is this better than walking the roof?
A flight covers the entire surface systematically at a steady altitude, with no foot traffic to bruise the membrane and no crew exposed on an unfamiliar roof. On anything over roughly 10,000 square feet a walkover burns hours and still misses the low spots where water ponds out of sight. And thermal moisture mapping simply cannot be done on foot, because it needs the even, overhead coverage only a flight delivers.
Can infrared imaging really show where water is trapped?
Yes, when it is flown correctly. We run the thermal pass during the cool-down after sunset, when saturated insulation holds the day's heat longer than the dry roof around it and lights up on the infrared image. The resulting moisture map is accurate enough to drive the call between a targeted repair and a full tear-off, which is usually the largest number on the table.
How do you use the footage for an insurance claim?
We deliver a GPS-tagged report documenting hail-impact density, wind-displaced membrane, edge-metal disturbance, and damage to rooftop equipment and flashings, organized the way commercial property adjusters expect to receive it. For a disputed claim it gives us a defensible basis for the scope, and we coordinate the package with our insurance claim coordination service.
Which roofs benefit most from a drone inspection?
Large flat commercial roofs: distribution and manufacturing buildings, retail centers, office complexes, and multi-building campuses. On a small or steep roof a hands-on inspection is quick and complete, so the drone adds less there. Above roughly 10,000 square feet, the aerial approach is both more thorough and far safer.
Do you need special authorization to fly near the Burlington airport?
Yes. Much of Burlington's commercial roof stock sits in controlled airspace around Burlington International, so we pull FAA LAANC authorization before the flight and operate under Part 107 with a certificated remote pilot. We handle the clearance and the safety setup, so you never carry the liability for the flight.