Drone survey in Teignmouth

Teignmouth is directly exposed to easterly gales driving up the Channel, which is unusual in Devon. Most South West detailing assumes the weather arrives from the south west, so verges, flashings and pointing on east-facing elevations here take a battering that the original builders did not necessarily plan for.

Salt reaches the whole front, and the railway sea wall regularly overtops in a storm. That means fixings on the front ranks of property corrode faster and any ferrous component on an exposed elevation has a short life. Those are small parts, invisible from the ground, and they are the ones a close photograph is for.

The front carries Georgian and Regency terraces with rendered parapets and cornices, and the slopes behind carry Victorian villas. A good number of the seafront buildings are now apartment conversions, which brings flat roofs, roof terraces and plant into a roofscape that was never designed for any of them.

Parapets are the recurring theme. A parapet hides the roof behind it, and a gutter behind a parapet fails inward rather than outward, so the first sign is often a damp patch on a top floor ceiling with no visible cause. From above that gutter is simply a line you can look along.

The town is squeezed between the sea and steep ground climbing behind it, with the Ness headland of red sandstone across the water. Take off options on the front are limited and often public, so the practical choice is a private yard or a garden behind the property.

Wind off the sea is the usual reason a date moves. It is not about the aircraft coping, it is about a camera holding steady enough for a photograph that is worth having, and on this front that is a real constraint several days a week in winter.

The conversion stock creates the same pattern as elsewhere on this coast: the roof belongs to a freeholder or a management company, the leak arrives in somebody's flat, and progress depends on evidence rather than on complaints.

The port side of the town adds a commercial layer, with quayside buildings and working roofs that need condition records rather than opinions. Both uses want the same thing, which is a dated, captioned set of images that somebody else can act on.

The Ness headland and Shaldon sit across the water from the town, and the ferry between them is part of daily life here. Properties on the Shaldon side and properties on the Teignmouth front are in different wind regimes despite being a few hundred metres apart.

For a TQ14 enquiry that is worth establishing early. The town front takes easterly weather straight up the Channel, and the ground behind the Ness is sheltered from it, which changes what a survey is likely to find at the details.

The estuary itself provides good open approaches, and the working port end of the town is planned around rather than flown over during busy periods.