Vantage UAV & The Social Housing Sector

At Vantage UAV, we’re the proud partners of many organisations in the social housing sector for drone-based inspection and surveying services.

We collect data for numerous public sector housing entities including; Housing Associations, ALMOs and City Councils.

Why Use Drones in the Social Housing Sector?

We understand the past few years’ events have created an operational struggle when it comes to property maintenance and repairs.

The COVID 19 pandemic saw an increase in demand to maintenance and repair work, whilst the ability to respond was restricted and made ever more challenging by a reduced work force and supply chain difficulties.

In addition, the increasing financial pressure on tenants and inflationary pressures on operation costs have resulted in greater need for prioritising works based on severity coupled with longer waiting times.

To navigate this complex web of challenges successfully, the allocation of resources needs to be as efficient as possible. One way to achieve this is through the employment on drones into day-to-day operations.

Drones provide unparalleled efficiency gains for social housing providers:

Time Efficiency – Drone inspections provide substantial time savings compared to traditional methods.

A standard roof inspection requires scaffolding to be erected and costly access equipment to be brought in. Combine that with organising multiple workers to carry out the review, and you have a logistical process that takes a substantial amount of time.

Drone inspections on a typical house often only need one pilot and a spotter to operate the drone safely. Therefore, they require less logistical planning and can begin as soon as the Vantage UAV operations personnel arrive on site. You can also cover a greater area much faster than manual inspections.

Improved Data – Manual inspection methods often collect inaccurate and unreliable data. Handheld cameras are difficult to operate (particularly when working at height), meaning significant issues can easily go undetected. As a result, inspections and surveys have to be carried out multiple times.

In contrast, drone inspections capture large amounts of data consistently and accurately. This can then be analysed in detail to understand the full scope of potential issues, the first time around. Repair work can also be fully assessed and costed before any work begins, drastically aiding planning processes.

Cost Savings – Drones provide significant savings at every stage of the inspection process.

Drone inspections require no scaffolding, cherry pickers, towers, or other access equipment. You save on the significant cost of acquiring, transporting, and deploying these to site.

The expense savings on a single house alone are considerable. If multiple properties are involved this saving is exponentially higher from hundreds to thousands of pounds.

Increased Safety – Using drones for inspections is significantly safer for workers than conventional inspection methods.

Physically putting someone up on a roof of house or on a mid/high rise building always carries a high level of risk. Working at height means falling is always a danger, with 75% of fatalities in the roofing industry being linked to falls, highlighting the crucial need to reduce this risk where possible (Valentz, 2015).

With a drone, this risk is completely mitigated. Inspections are carried out from the ground, without workers safety being compromised.

Where Else Can Vantage UAV Help You? 

Building Safety – Drones provide you with an unparalleled capability to capture data in multi occupancy buildings of all sizes and heights. Drones collect detailed imagery that can easily highlight issues with the external fabric of a building. The comprehensive data collected can be processed to create a full 3D digital twin of the building.

Development & Regeneration – Vantage UAV can survey large areas of land in a fraction of the time of traditional methods. The data Vantage UAV collect is mm accurate and can aid in small or large development and regeneration projects. Drones can monitor project progress effectively and can also be deployed to assist site security functions.

Legal Disrepair – Capture vital data that is both date and time stamped, which can assist you against the ever-escalating number of legal disrepair claims. The data can be deemed evidential in disputing or contesting such claims.

Social Inclusion – Vantage UAV’s inspections are significantly less disruptive to tenants when compared to traditional inspection methods. In addition, residents often view the deployment of drones as a positive representation of action being taken to rectify problems, carried out in an innovative and technically advanced way.

Net Zero – Vantage UAV inspections help enable significant reductions in carbon emissions. The use of drones removes the need for the movement of heavy industrial products such as scaffolding. At Vantage UAV, we use a locally based pilot network to deliver projects helping to reduce Scope 3 emissions. The drones themselves use rechargeable batteries, the efficiency of which is continually improving.

Contact Vantage UAV

To hear how drone solutions can improve the efficiency & effectiveness of your operation, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

We provide bespoke services and solutions tailored to the needs of every client.

We look forward to hearing from you!

References:

1. Valentz, 2015. Source: www.phpsd.com