Drone services in Bridgwater

Bridgwater sits very low and flat at the edge of the Somerset Levels with the Bristol Channel a short distance north-west, so wind arrives across open ground with nothing to break it.

Flat open ground offers no shelter at all, which means exposure is uniform across the town rather than concentrated on one side, and damage after a blow turns up over a wide area.

The ground itself is wet and low, which matters for access, for plant, and for damp reaching buildings from below as well as from above.

That last point is worth stating plainly: not every damp problem in this town starts at the roof, and a survey that finds a sound roof is a useful result rather than a wasted visit.

Salt does reach this far in from the Channel on a strong north-westerly, so corrosion on fixings is a live question here in a way it is not in the sheltered inland Somerset towns.

The industrial period left extensive Victorian brick terraces, mostly clay double roman and slate, with shared valleys and party wall abutments in long runs.

Failures concentrate at those junctions rather than in the middle of a slope, and establishing which side of a valley has gone is the awkward part from ground level.

The Georgian core around Castle Street is tighter and largely listed, with the usual access difficulties and the usual need for a record before work.

Very large post-war estates make up the bulk of the housing and produce the ordinary run of findings at a steady pace.

Profiled metal and single-ply on the industrial estates is a large share of the town's roof area, and the docks and the industrial legacy add older large-span structures on top of that.

Rapid modern expansion linked to the Hinkley Point workforce has brought a great deal of new housing, and with it the defects-period enquiry from owners who want the outside recorded while somebody else is liable.

Commercial landlords and managing agents are a meaningful share of the callers, and their question is usually about several buildings rather than one.

Rooflights on the older industrial stock are the recurring weak point, having gone brittle and yellow with age, and they are both a leak risk and a genuine safety problem for anybody walking the roof.

The Levels and the tidal Parrett bring drainage, flooding and land records where the date on the photograph is most of the value.

Ground here changes dramatically between summer and winter, so a record taken in the wet season answers a completely different question from one taken in July, and the wet one is usually the one in dispute.

Access across wet ground is poor in winter, which is another argument for a survey that needs neither a vehicle nor plant to reach what it is looking at.