Drone services in Minehead

North Hill rises steeply straight behind the town, which shelters Minehead from the south-westerly that most of Devon is built to resist and leaves it open to northerly weather off the Bristol Channel instead.

That inversion catches out details designed on the usual assumption, and it means the elevations that need watching here are not the ones an owner from further south would expect.

The hill also produces strong downdraughts and eddies over the roofs beneath it, so wind arrives from above and sideways rather than in a steady flow, working at ridge and hip fixings from unhelpful angles.

For flying, the same downdraughts mean conditions immediately under the hill can be markedly different from conditions two streets away, which is a real planning consideration rather than a technicality.

The old harbour quarter is a picturesque mix of thatched and slate cottages, and thatch here has the usual rule attached: the ridge wears first, cannot be walked and cannot be judged from below.

Along the front the Victorian and Edwardian resort villas and hotels carry larger, more complicated roofs with flat sections, and the same ownership problem that resorts always have, where one covering serves many interested parties.

The very large holiday accommodation stock is the other constant. Buildings that are busy for six months and unwatched for the other six are exactly the pattern that lets a winter failure go unnoticed until a guest finds it.

A check either side of the season is the sensible routine, and it is far cheaper than the alternative.

The town sits at the northern foot of Exmoor, so the parishes behind it are farming country with the usual agricultural roofs, tracks and boundaries.

That work is entirely different from the seafront work, and a single trip out here often covers both, which suits a place this far from base.

The West Somerset Railway and the harbour also bring occasional heritage and visitor recording work, where the useful subject is a structure in its landscape.

Barn conversions and holiday cottages in the parishes behind the town add the recurring junction problem, where old fabric meets new rooflights and link sections and almost all the water gets in at the seam.

Minehead is one of the longer journeys in the coverage area, so work here is planned rather than fitted in, and pairing two or three jobs in a day is the normal shape of it.

Because a wasted trip is expensive for everybody, slots here are firmed up closer to the day than they are for a job twenty minutes from base.

Post-war housing on the lower slopes rounds out the domestic side, conventional roofs in an unusual wind environment producing the ordinary findings at their own pace.

Salt reaches the front here as it does on any Channel coast, so metalwork and fixings on the seafront buildings need looking at on a shorter interval than the same components inland.