Solar Inspection done Safely

Drone Inspections Done Safely!

In this blog post we're going to explain how we safely and legally conduct a solar panel / roof inspection on a residential property .

It's very important when doing a drone job that the laws and regulations are followed and the safety of everyone around or involved in the job is not compromised.

Solar Panel Close Up

The key legal rule ensuring safety for those around a drone is the 50 metre rule, this means that during flight the drone must remain at least 50 metres away from any persons, vehicles, vessels or structures not involved or part of the drone activity. Obviously, when doing a roof inspection we need to get close to a property as this would be difficult at 50 metres. Fortunately the property and roof itself is considered part of the drone activity and therefore is not subject to this 50 metre rule. However it gets complicated when operating in a residential area because usually there are numerous houses within 50 metres that are not necessarily part of the drone inspection. Therefore in order to make this legal and safe we must gain permission from all those properties nearby. We usually try and ask the occupier of the house under inspection to do this because they already have a relationship with their neighbours. Where this is not possible we would go round each and every single house within 50m to verbally brief and discuss the work that we will be doing ahead of time to ensure there are no objections to the drone flying around their streets. Usually their concerns around privacy and security rather than Safety therefore I tend to be very clear about how the drone works, the purpose of the flight and the laws surrounding data protection. Some people believe that when you fly a drone, it is constantly recording or constantly taking pictures, but this isn't the case with newer drones. Yes, previously older drones with GoPro cameras did require setting the drone to record before take off and therefore recording the entire flight and having to edit all of the images and video on landing. But now with much better technology we are able to control the camera and control when it does and  doesn't take photos from the ground during the flight. It is also in our interest to take the minimum number of photos necessary as the more photos we take the more time it takes to edit and process went back in the office. Finally GDPR are rules and the Data Protection Act are the final protection for privacy of those around the drone during the flight, we comply with these rules when handling images that may contain personal data.

Solar Panel Overview