Drone survey in Weymouth

The long unbroken Georgian esplanade is rendered terraces with parapets and bow fronts, and behind those parapets sit hidden gutters. That construction is the specific Weymouth problem, because when one of those gutters silts up or a lead joint fails, the water goes inward into the building rather than outward where somebody would see it.

The result is a damp patch on a top floor ceiling with no visible cause, sometimes for years. From the promenade the building looks perfect, because a parapet is designed to hide exactly what has gone wrong. From directly above, the gutter is simply a channel you can look along and see the standing water, the silt and the vegetation in it.

The roofscape includes natural slate behind parapets, clay plain tile, flat and mansard roofs on the esplanade terraces, and Portland stone slate on the historic buildings towards the harbour. Mansards bring their own issues, since the steep lower slope is effectively a wall that is roofed and gets treated as neither.

Behind the front there are Victorian and Edwardian streets and very large post-war estates, which are ordinary suburban survey subjects and much simpler propositions.

Salt and gale exposure runs along the whole front. On a rendered elevation that shows as blown patches and staining, and on the roof it shows at the edges: verge, ridge, flashing and the junction between a parapet and the covering behind it.

Portland and Chesil Beach to the south mean the wider area has its own conditions, and a job out that way is planned for wind more carefully than one in the town.

A large part of the esplanade is flats and hotels, so the roof usually belongs to a company rather than a person. The report has to work as evidence for somebody who was not there and who has a budget to defend, which is the argument for captions and dates rather than a folder of images.

Harbour side commercial buildings add a second strand, where the question is usually about a flat roof and the plant sitting on it.

Portland and Chesil Beach to the south are their own environment, with stone buildings, extreme exposure and conditions that can be markedly different from the town on the same day. Work out that way is planned as a separate proposition.

For DT3 and DT4 addresses in the town the harbour is the more relevant feature. Buildings around it are working commercial stock with flat roofs and plant, and they wear in the way that harbourside buildings everywhere do, from the edges inward.

The scale of the esplanade also means that a survey of one property in a Georgian terrace often reveals something about the run, since the parapet and the gutter behind it usually continue across several buildings regardless of ownership.