Drone survey in Budleigh Salterton

Budleigh has a lot of Victorian and Edwardian villas and substantial detached housing in generous plots, with bungalows on the higher ground. A settled population means many properties have been held a long time and altered little, which is charming and has a specific consequence for roofs.

A roof that has never been touched has never been checked either. Original slate with original nails, original lead at the abutments and original pointing at the verges will all reach the end of their working life at roughly the same time, and it happens quietly. The point of a survey on this kind of stock is to find out where in that process a building actually is.

There is thatch on the edges of the town, and thatch is worth being clear about. Aerial photographs show the state of a ridge, the wear on the coatwork, the line of the eaves and whether the netting is doing its job, all of which are useful.

What they do not do is replace a thatcher's opinion on how much depth is left, which is a hands-on judgement. On a thatched property the sensible use of a survey is to record condition and to see the parts of the roof nobody can get to, then take a thatcher to the specific areas that look worth a closer look.

The town sits at the mouth of the Otter with a pebble beach, the estuary and its reed beds to the east and wooded slopes rising sharply behind the high street. It is open to the south and south west with no shelter from the sea, though the valley sides take some of the edge off, and salt spray reaches the front ranks of housing in winter storms.

That produces a gradient across the town. Properties on the front behave like seafront buildings; properties behind the ridge behave like inland ones. Which of those a house is has more effect on its roof than its age does.

Generous plots make this one of the easier towns on the coast to fly. Most properties have their own clear ground, gardens are large enough for sensible standoff, and the nature reserve and the beach provide open approaches on the eastern side.

The practical planning point is the reserve itself. Flights are kept away from the estuary bird habitat, which is straightforward when the subject is a house on the other side of the town.

The Octagon and the older houses near the front sit within a town that is unusually quiet and unusually well kept, and the East Devon Way running out of it gives access to open ground on both sides.

For an EX9 enquiry that produces an easy job in practice. There is space to work, plots are large, neighbours are not on top of each other and standoff distances are comfortable, which produces better photographs than a cramped position ever will.

The one thing worth planning is the beach and the cliff line, which are busy in summer and are not a sensible place to be working from at any time of year.