Drone Thermography UK | Thermal Roof, Heat Loss & BREEAM Surveys

The problem

Energy bleeds where you can't see it.

A building can lose 25% of its heat through invisible defects: failing insulation, water-saturated roof membranes, broken vapour barriers, cold bridges around poorly fitted openings.

A walking thermographer covers a few hundred square metres an hour. A drone fitted with a calibrated thermal sensor covers ten times that, from angles no person can reach. The result is a complete thermal map, day or night, ready to drop into your EPC, BREEAM submission, or condition report.

What we deliver

Four thermal survey types.

✓
Thermal roof survey
Identify wet insulation, membrane failure, and missing batten or insulation runs. Catch defects before they become claims.
✓
Thermal heat loss survey
Whole-building scan to identify thermal weak points. Output suitable for retrofit planning and EPC support.
✓
Thermal BREEAM survey
Compliance-grade capture for sustainability assessment. Calibrated equipment, certified operators, audit-ready evidence.
✓
Thermal mapping
Large-area thermal orthomosaics for solar farms, district heating networks, and industrial estates.

Solar inspection

Spot the failing panels before they fail.

Thermal drone surveys of solar PV arrays catch defects long before they become bigger losses. A failing cell, a bypass-diode short, a delaminating module, a soiling pattern, all show up clearly in thermal imagery before any visual symptom appears or yield drops noticeably.

✓
Hotspot detection
Individual cells running 10°C+ above the module mean. Caught early before the laminate degrades, the bypass diode fails, or the array runs hot enough to delaminate.
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Bypass diode failures
A failed bypass diode means an entire substring runs at higher resistance. Thermal signature is unmistakable. Identified, GPS-stamped, ready for module-level replacement.
✓
String-level mismatch
Whole-string temperature anomalies indicate connector failure, cabling damage, or inverter mismatch. The thermal pattern shows you which string, and where on it.
✓
Soiling and shading
Persistent thermal anomalies caused by bird droppings, lichen, debris, or partial shading. The pattern tells you whether it's a cleaning job or a routing problem.
✓
Micro-cracks and PID
Potential Induced Degradation and micro-crack patterns visible in calibrated thermal capture before they affect yield. Catch in early warranty, not after.
✓
Whole-array thermal map
Geo-referenced thermal orthomosaic of the full array, with every defect pinned to a module ID. Hosted on AIM Platform for the O&M team and the asset owner.

Catching a single failed bypass diode in a 5 MW farm saves typically £3,000-£6,000 in lost generation over a year before the inverter alerts on the string. A single thermal flight pays for itself many times over on commercial PV.

Common questions

Frequently asked

What can a thermal drone survey detect?

Heat loss through walls and roofs, missing or compressed insulation, moisture ingress, blocked or damaged cavity insulation, faulty underfloor heating loops, failing solar panels, and electrical hotspots. Anything with a temperature difference shows up.

How much does a thermal drone roof survey cost?

Single-property thermal surveys typically start at £650. Multi-property portfolios (housing associations, retrofit programmes) work out cheaper per unit, usually £180 to £350 per property when run in batches.

When is the best time to do a thermal survey?

Cold, still, dry weather between October and March, ideally with a minimum 10°C indoor-to-outdoor temperature difference. Surveys are usually flown at dawn or shortly after sunset to avoid solar gain on the building fabric.

Can drone thermography help with BREEAM certification?

Yes. Thermal imagery is accepted evidence under BREEAM Hea 02 (indoor air quality), Ene 04 (low-carbon design) and Mat 06 (material efficiency) categories. We deliver BREEAM-formatted reports as standard.

Is thermal drone imaging useful for solar panel inspections?

Very. A thermal flight identifies underperforming panels, bypass-diode failures, hotspots and cell-level defects in minutes across an entire array. We typically inspect a 500kW commercial array in a single half-day visit.

What deliverables come with a thermal survey?

Marked-up thermal plans per elevation, side-by-side visual and infrared imagery, a written interpretation report, and an AIM Platform viewer link so your asset team can explore the data themselves. Floor-plan overlays on request.

Do you do thermal surveys of large housing portfolios?

Yes. We regularly survey 50 to 500-property portfolios for housing associations and asset managers ahead of retrofit programmes. Centralised scheduling, consistent operator team, single AIM Platform deliverable.

See what the eye can't.

Energy bleeds where you can't see it.

Four thermal survey types.

Spot the failing panels before they fail.

Thermal data, overlaid on your building.

See thermal surveys we've delivered

Frequently asked

Schedule a thermal capture.