Thermal Drone Survey
Heat Loss and Insulation Gap Survey
A targeted thermal check on a cold room, a suspected patch of missing loft insulation, or a cold bridge at a wall junction, aimed at homeowners with a symptom rather than a vague worry.
This is the survey for somebody who already knows roughly where the problem is. A bedroom over a garage that never warms up, a loft that was topped up years ago and nobody is sure it was done properly, a Victorian extension junction where a hand held near the wall consistently feels colder than it should.
Rather than covering the whole building evenly, the flight concentrates on the area in question and the surfaces around it, so the reading can compare the suspect area against a known-good part of the same building rather than against a general assumption.
The result is a shorter, more focused report, aimed at answering one question well: is there a gap here, roughly where does it run, and is it consistent with missing insulation, a cold bridge in the structure, or something else that happens to look similar on a thermal image.
What is included
- A focused thermal pass over the room, elevation or roof area in question
- A comparison reading from an equivalent, unaffected part of the same building
- Loft and roof insulation gaps identified where the roof covering allows a reading
- Cold bridging at wall junctions, lintels, extensions and party walls checked
- A written report within 48 hours explaining what the pattern most likely means
- A plain note on whether the finding needs opening up to confirm, and why
Reading a gap rather than a whole building
Missing or settled loft insulation is one of the clearer things a thermal camera can show, because the difference between an insulated section of roof and an uninsulated one is usually large and sharply edged, a rectangle or a strip rather than a gradual fade. That sharp edge is a useful tell: a slow, even change is more often weather or sun angle than a genuine gap.
Cold bridging, where a structural element like a lintel, a steel beam or a party wall junction carries heat through the building fabric faster than the surrounding wall, shows differently. It tends to be a thinner, more linear warm trace following the shape of the structure underneath, which is why comparing the suspect area against an equivalent part of the building matters as much as the reading itself.
What this cannot tell you on its own
A thermal image can show that a pattern exists and where it runs. It cannot, on its own, tell you the insulation's exact depth, its exact material, or whether the cause is missing insulation, disturbed insulation, or a structural cold bridge that no amount of loft insulation will fix, because those can look similar from outside.
Where the report cannot separate those possibilities with confidence, it says so, and suggests what a follow-up would need to look like, usually a loft hatch inspection or an installer's assessment, rather than presenting a guess as a finding.
On the day
How a heat loss and insulation gaps runs
- Step 1
Describe the symptom
Which room, which wall, when it is worst, and anything already tried. The more specific the starting point, the more useful the comparison reading.
- Step 2
Timing agreed
Same rule as the whole-building survey: a real temperature difference has to exist for the camera to show anything, so the flight is timed around the weather and the heating pattern rather than a fixed slot.
- Step 3
The flight
Close, methodical coverage of the area in question from outside, plus a comparison area, usually twenty minutes to half an hour.
- Step 4
The report
A focused write-up within 48 hours: what the pattern shows, how it compares to the reference area, and what it most likely means.
Behind the work
Kit, cover and qualifications
CAA registered
Operator ID and Flyer ID held, plus the A2 Certificate of Competency. Every flight, including the early morning and after-dark ones this survey often needs, is planned to the rules that apply to the site.
Radiometric thermal camera
A DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced carrying a 640 by 512 radiometric sensor. Radiometric means every pixel is an actual temperature reading, not just a colour, which is what makes a genuine comparison across a roof or a wall possible.
100 megapixel visual pass
A DJI Mavic 4 Pro with a Hasselblad camera flies alongside the thermal camera on every job, so a warm or cool patch on the thermal image can be matched back to the actual roof feature or wall detail underneath it.
Insured with Coverdrone
Full commercial cover for the operation. Certificates go to managing agents, landlords and insurers as a matter of course, without anyone having to chase for them.
Heat loss and insulation gaps
Heat Loss and Insulation Gap Survey questions
- Can this be done for just one room?
- Yes, and it is the most common version of this survey. The flight covers the elevation and roof area over that room plus a comparison area, rather than the whole building.
- Will this tell me exactly how much insulation is missing?
- It will show the extent and rough location of a gap, which is usually enough to get a quote for topping it up. It does not measure depth directly, so where an installer needs an exact figure they will still check by hand at the loft hatch.
- What about cavity wall insulation specifically?
- A thermal read can suggest a cavity fill has failed or slumped in places, seen as a patchy or striped pattern on the wall rather than an even one. It is a strong pointer rather than a certificate, and a cavity-specific inspection is the way to confirm it if the finding matters for a claim or a warranty.
Where
Heat Loss and Insulation Gap Survey across the South West
Also on this site
See what it can and cannot see
Book a thermal survey with Thermal Drone Survey
Tell us the address and what you need looking at. Sam Hembury will come back with a fixed price and the next available slot.