A managing agent asks for a roof inspection on a four storey building. The enquiry says the address and nothing else.
Somebody travels, looks up, realises there is no safe access, no scaffold and a neighbouring property that rules out flying anything, and returns having achieved nothing.
1. Establish the height and the storeys
This single answer determines almost everything about method and cost, and it is the thing enquiry forms never ask.
2. Ask what the roof is made of
Slate, tile, felt, single ply, metal, asbestos cement. Some materials cannot be walked on at all and that changes the method before anything else.
3. Ask what prompted the enquiry
A leak, a sale, an insurance question or a maintenance programme. Each needs a different inspection and they are not interchangeable.
4. Find out whether anyone has been up recently
A previous report, a roofer's opinion or photographs already taken save considerable time and occasionally make an inspection unnecessary.
5. Establish safe access on foot
Internal roof access, existing anchor points, a flat area to work from. Where these exist the job is straightforward and where they do not it is a different quotation.
6. Check the drone constraints before promising one
Airspace restrictions, proximity to people and property, permission from whoever controls the land you take off from, and weather on the day. Any of them can rule it out.
7. Explain what drone imagery does and does not give
It surveys coverage and visible condition well. It does not lift a tile, test a fixing or tell you what is happening in the deck below, and clients assume otherwise.
8. Say whether a hands on element is needed
Many enquiries need both, and the honest answer is frequently that imagery scopes the problem and a closer inspection confirms it.
9. Ask about occupancy and working hours
Occupied buildings, schools and retail premises constrain when work can happen, which affects cost and lead time rather than method.
10. Get the permissions question answered early
Communal roofs, freeholders, neighbours whose land you need to launch from. Permission takes days and nobody factors it in.
11. Set out what the report will contain
Photographs, annotated findings, condition grading, recommendations and any limitations. Clients who know the format are much less likely to dispute the scope.
12. Say what falls outside the inspection
Internal ceilings, insulation, electrical items on the roof and anything not visible. Stating exclusions protects you exactly as it does in damp and timber survey enquiries from worried owners.
13. Handle the commercial cases differently
Portfolio and dilapidations work has its own requirements, covered in commercial survey and dilapidations enquiries.
14. Decide whether a site visit precedes the quotation
For complex access it frequently must, which is the judgement described in site visit and survey questions before a proposal.
15. Capture the detail at enquiry, automatically
An assistant that asks the height, material, access, reason and occupancy, then passes a properly formed enquiry through, turns an address into something quotable. That is the qualification described in the best chatbot questions for capturing high quality leads. See features.
16. What proper scoping changes
Accurate quotations, no wasted journeys and clients who get an answer the same day rather than a visit next week. Start at try, and firms working alongside architects find the same questions serve both.