Drone services in Saltash

The waterfront quarter is built on streets steep enough to be difficult on foot, with terraced cottages stacked below the town centre and the two bridges overhead. Getting access equipment to a roof down there is expensive and slow.

Slate and slate hanging are the characteristic coverings, the hanging present for the same reason it is elsewhere on this coast: driving rain, and walls that need protecting.

On a slope like this the roofs also relate to one another. Water shed by an upper property lands on or near a lower one, and disputes about where a leak originates are common and hard to settle from ground level.

A view from above sorts that out quickly, because the whole drainage path shows in one frame instead of being pieced together from two ends.

Pointing on the older stone and rendered cottages is another regular finding. Constant wetting from the valley air keeps mortar damp, and mortar that never dries fails from the face inward long before anything looks dramatic.

The valley funnels wind hard in both directions, and the town gets salt-laden air off the estuary on top of it.

That combination corrodes fixings and works at ridge and verge details, and it does it on elevations facing both up and down the valley rather than on one prevailing side.

For flying, the same funnelling means conditions at the waterfront can differ noticeably from conditions at the top of the town, which is a short distance and a real difference.

Salt reaches further inland here than the distance from open water suggests, because the estuary carries it up the valley, so corrosion on fixings is a live question well above the waterfront.

Above the old town, the post-war estates at Burraton and Latchbrook and the modern development along the Callington road are conventional concrete interlocking tile.

The findings there are the usual short list: ridge bedding, verge mortar, a slipped tile, and flat roofs on garages and extensions that have run out of felt life.

It is quick, unglamorous work and it makes up the bulk of the domestic enquiries from this town.

Because the estate housing was largely built to one pattern in a short period, the same detail tends to fail across a whole street, and neighbours often ring within a few weeks of one another.

The Royal Albert Bridge and the Tamar Bridge are both significant structures with their own operational and security considerations, and anything close to them is checked properly before a flight is planned.

River traffic and the Saltash Passage waterfront add the same consideration on the water side.

The bridges also account for most of the picture work here, since property and businesses on this side of the Tamar sell partly on the view of them.

The Waterside quarter also draws a certain amount of picture work from businesses and from property sales, since the position under the bridges is a large part of what is being sold.