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A construction restoration project has been underway in Dallas, Texas for several months now. The property being worked on is the Meadows Foundation, an organization with a number of charitable initiatives in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

The construction contractors have been hard at work revamping the property’s exterior, from the landscaping to the gutters and everything in between.

Over the last couple of months, the contractors on the ground have encountered roadblocks in the form of mysterious moisture issues seen near the top of the building’s facade. These moisture issues have interrupted construction progress, causing delays in the projected completion timeline.

Identifying Moisture Ingress Issues in the Roof

A contractor working the project reached out to us to investigate these moisture issues. They hypothesized that the root cause of the moisture issues manifesting on the building’s facade might be moisture that had penetrated the building’s flat roof.

The roof in question is a gravel ballasted roof, which means the roof has an added layer of protection against the elements. But given enough time, even a protected/ballasted roof will succumb to moisture issues.

As a drone thermal roof inspection service provider, we were up for the task and excited to provide support in the overall restoration process.

After analyzing the local weather forecast to plan the ideal night for the inspection, securing on-demand liability insurance during the flight block period, and obtaining a LAANC flight authorization for Dallas Love Field’s Class B airspace, we were ready to get started.

After arriving on site, we prepared the drone and performed a thorough walk-around of the entire property to check for obstacles.

2D Thermal Map

Then, we double-checked the autonomous flight route parameters for the mapping mission that we would execute first. This method of data capture allows us to quickly capture hundreds of images in a regimented way to then stitch together into a 2D thermal map.

Below, you can see the thermal map we created from the Meadows Foundation property. This particular map is comprised of 282 individual photos that were autonomously captured by our Mavic 3T.

We always like to create these maps to be included in the end product (which is a comprehensive thermal report — more on that later) to give our clients a big-picture overview of the thermal data prior to diving into closer photos captured in the inspection.

This approach allows all team members and decision-makers to quickly and easily spot problematic areas in the roof. It also aids in orienting oneself to the different parts of the roof when viewing individual photos later on in the report.

Capturing Thermograms Manually

After running the autonomous mapping mission, we flew the drone around to the different parts of the roof to manually capture images to include in the thermal report. During this phase of the process, we carefully examine every part of the roof and document our findings by taking individual thermograms.

Below, you can see a few of the photos we captured during the inspection.

As you can see from the thermal map and this selection of photos, there was quite a bit of moisture present in this roof structure. With the Iron Red color palette seen in these photos, the yellow/orange tones show higher amounts of infrared radiation (heat, basically), and the cooler tones show lower amounts of infrared radiation.

Since these photos were taken an hour or two after sunset after a warm and sunny day, we would expect to see moisture that had penetrated the roof as “hot spots” when compared to the surrounding roof. And as you can see, there are quite a few areas that indicate the likely presence of moisture.

The End Product

So, what exactly was the end product for our client? The end product was a thermal report containing the 2D thermal map we mentioned earlier along with a selection of individual photos we deemed most important to analyze and include in the product.

During the post-processing stage of our workflow, we narrowed our batch of photos down to 12 photos to include in the report.

Take a look at the final thermal report below.

You’ll notice an assortment of specific temperature measurements taken on some of the photos. As we explained at the beginning of the report, these exact measurements aren’t as important as noting the overall patterns observed in each thermogram.

However, we like to include some precise measurements in some of the thermograms to paint an even more detailed picture of what we’re seeing. With a project like this, we try to find the sweet spot in terms of providing the client with maximum actionable data while ensuring that the data is relevant and easy to digest/understand.

The Bottom Line

With this thermal inspection report in hand, the client now has actionable information that a) verifies their original hypothesis concerning the possibility of moisture in the roof bleeding over into parts of the facade and b) guides future decision-making.

With this information, the client can now pursue a much-needed roof repair (or outright replacement). As was the client’s initial concern, it won’t matter what they do with the facade if the roof is leaking — it will simply continue spreading to other areas and ruining any exterior progress made.

And given the extent of the suspected moisture ingress issues, it’s reasonable to conclude that there is likely severe damage from prolonged moisture intrusion. So, the client can better plan for the likelihood of wood rot, damaged insulation, and mold issues within the roof foundation during the replacement process.

This knowledge can streamline this process since they now know what they will be getting into when they take apart the existing roof.

With modern infrared drone technology, we ultimately helped the client save time and money on this project by confirming a suspected issue that would have been difficult (if not impossible) to verify another way.

Without a thermal drone, a thermography-certified operator, and some good post-processing software, the moisture issues would have continued to stump the contractors on the ground and delay progress with the project.

So, at the end of the day, the Meadows Foundation restoration project can be better streamlined, and all problems can be correctly addressed.

To learn more about our thermal roof inspection process, take a look at our service page.