Annual roof inspections for two condominium boards

The challenge

A condominium board is made up of volunteers who are usually owners in the building, accountable to their neighbours, working to a reserve fund study and a budget they have to defend at an annual general meeting. What a board needs from a roof inspection is a record showing the roof was properly looked at, a deficiency list it can act on or defer with a reason, and continuity year to year so the same roof is not assessed from scratch by whoever is cheapest that spring.

The sites

Two separate Edmonton properties with two separate boards. The first is a single site of three two storey buildings with flat roofs. The second is one large four storey building with a sloped tile roof. Neither property is named here.

Equipment and method

The flat roofs are flown with radiometric thermal, timed to just after snowmelt and early in the day, when winter damage is visible and the temperature difference across the membrane is at its most useful. The tile roof is a visual inspection flown in May or June, looking at tiles, vents, gutters and flashing. On a roof that size every deficiency needs a position precise enough for a roofer to find it later, so the deliverable is a located list rather than a folder of photographs. Both programs repeat to the same specification every year, so each inspection compares against the last and a deficiency can be tracked as new, unchanged or worsening.

Airspace and safety

Residential airspace over occupied buildings. Flights are kept over the roof surfaces and away from balconies and windows, and capture is of the building rather than the people in it.

Deliverables

A detailed report with each deficiency numbered and positioned on the roof, supporting imagery, and a comparison against the previous year.

Result

On the tile roof the alternative was not a cheaper inspection, it was no inspection: a lift cannot reach four storeys and would damage the grounds getting there, and the slope and the tile make walking it a fall risk and a damage risk at the same time. The finds make the case. On the flat roofs we located a skate that had been thrown up and lodged in a gutter, invisible from the ground and one windy day from falling two storeys onto whoever was underneath. On the tile roof, last year, a nest built under the overhang, which blocks drainage and carries material into vents, and which is far simpler to deal with when it is found early. Both boards have renewed every year since.

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