For facility managers & building owners

Infrared Roof Moisture Survey

Drone inspections from $175 near you

Overhead view of tiled rooftops in a dense town at golden hour
Flat roof of a brick warehouse building, seen from above
Flat roof of an office building with rooftop equipment
Overhead view of flat roofs crowded with HVAC units
What do you need?
Where's the property?

Free to post · Usually a reply the same day

219 inspection pilots listed · Pay the pilot directly, no commission

Independent FAA Part 107 pilots who cover your area quote and fly the job.

Free to post

Two minutes, no card, no commitment.

Pay the pilot directly

No commission or markup on their price.

FAA Part 107 pilots

The license all paid drone work requires.

Usually a reply the same day

From a pilot, or from our team if no pilot has answered.

How it works

Three steps, and the first one is free

  1. Describe the job

    The form opens with this page's answers already filled in. Add the location and anything specific to your site.

  2. A pilot near you sends a price

    Pilots whose service area and services match are emailed. Usually a reply the same day, from a pilot or from our team.

  3. Book them and pay them directly

    Check their certificate, kit and sample work, then pay the pilot. SkyLog takes no cut and adds no markup.

What to know before you book

The conditions this needs

More than most aerial work, this survey is a weather and timing problem. It needs a dry roof — a rained-on surface reads uniformly cool and hides everything. It needs meaningful solar gain during the day, so the roof has something to give back. It needs low wind, because wind carries away the surface temperature difference the whole method depends on. And it needs to be flown in the window after sunset while the differential is at its strongest. That combination is not available on demand, and a survey booked for a specific evening sometimes has to move. Building the possibility of a second attempt into the arrangement up front is cheaper and less annoying than discovering it on the night.

What kind of roof this suits

It works best on low-slope commercial roofs with absorbent insulation under a membrane — the built-up, modified bitumen and single-ply assemblies most flat roofs use. It is much less reliable on ballasted roofs, where the stone hides the thermal signature, on inverted assemblies with insulation above the membrane, and on roofs with closed-cell insulation that absorbs little water. Standing water on the surface will mask what is underneath, and a heavily reflective new membrane can be awkward. A pilot who asks about the roof build-up before quoting is asking the right question.

Verification is part of the method, not an extra

An infrared anomaly is a temperature difference, and temperature differences have other causes: a duct beneath the deck, a change in insulation type, a patch of a different age, debris. This is why a survey worth commissioning includes verification — physically confirming a sample of the flagged areas with a moisture meter or a core cut before anyone acts on the map. Ask how verification is handled and who does it. A scan delivered with no verification and no caveats is a hypothesis being presented as a finding.

What the report should contain

A plan of the roof with anomalies outlined and areas totalled. Radiometric thermal imagery, not screenshots, so the data can be re-examined later. Matching daylight visual imagery of the same areas, because half of what infrared flags is explained by something visible. The survey conditions — date, time, sky, wind, roof surface state — since anyone reading the report later needs to know whether the conditions supported the conclusion. And where verification was done, the results. Given that these surveys are often repeated every few years to track a roof's decline, the ability to compare like with like is worth specifying from the first one.

What this settles

  • Maps areas of a low-slope roof where the insulation is holding water, as outlined anomalies with areas totalled.
  • Works best on built-up, modified bitumen and single-ply assemblies with absorbent insulation under the membrane.
  • Gives you a repeatable baseline: flown the same way every few years, it tracks a roof's decline rather than just describing today.
  • Targets a repair, so you replace the wet areas rather than the whole roof.

What it does not

  • Work on a wet roof, in wind, or before the surface has had solar gain to give back. It is a dry, calm, post-sunset survey or it is nothing.
  • Read ballasted roofs, inverted assemblies, or closed-cell insulation that absorbs little water.
  • Distinguish trapped moisture from a duct below the deck, a patch of different age, or debris — not on its own.
  • Stand as a finding without verification. An anomaly is a temperature difference until a moisture meter or a core cut says otherwise.

Ask how verification is handled and who does it. A scan delivered with no verification and no caveats is a hypothesis presented as a finding.

Why post it on SkyLog

Extent, not just location

The reason to scan rather than probe is that you get the shape of the wet area across the whole roof in one pass. That is what turns a leak into a costed decision: patch the two wet bays, replace the north third, or replace the roof.

It works because water is slow

Wet insulation stores more heat than dry insulation and gives it back more slowly. After a sunny day, the wet areas are still warm when the dry roof around them has cooled — which is why the survey is flown after sunset, not at noon.

Marked up and measurable

The useful deliverable is not an infrared picture. It is the anomalies mapped onto a plan of the roof with areas quantified, so a contractor can price the work and you can compare that price to a replacement.

Free to post

Posting and receiving quotes costs nothing, and SkyLog takes no commission and adds no markup. You pay the pilot you hire, at the price the two of you agree.

Inspection pilots with published profiles

Real published profiles. Open any one to see credentials, kit, service area and sample work before you post.

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Before you post

How much does an infrared roof survey cost?

It is priced by roof area and by how much reporting and verification is included, so a small commercial roof and a warehouse are very different jobs. Inspection quotes on SkyLog have run from $100 to about $1,550 with a $300 median across 13 quotes, spanning all inspection types — commercial roof surveys sit at the upper end of that. Post the roof size and the deliverable you need for a real figure.

Why does it have to be at night?

Because the method relies on wet areas cooling more slowly than dry ones after the sun goes down. During the day, solar loading swamps that difference. The usual window is the few hours after sunset.

Will it work on my roof?

It suits low-slope roofs with absorbent insulation under the membrane. It is unreliable on ballasted roofs, inverted assemblies and closed-cell insulation, and it will not read through standing water. Say what the roof is built from when you post and pilots will tell you honestly.

Is aerial better than a walked survey?

It is faster, it covers the whole roof in one consistent capture, and nobody has to walk a possibly compromised surface at night. A walked infrared survey can get closer to detail and can carry a moisture meter at the same time. For a large roof the common answer is to fly the survey and walk the verification.

Do I need to be there?

Someone with roof access usually does, particularly if verification is part of the scope. Say what the access arrangements are when you post, because an evening flight at a site that locks at six is a scheduling problem worth raising early.

How often should this be repeated?

Many owners scan on a two-to-five-year cycle, and more often on a roof already known to be failing. The comparison between surveys is where the value compounds, so ask for deliverables in a form you will be able to compare against next time.

From a job poster

The jobs nobody else would quote

“I was not expecting to have a response so quickly after calling countless different companies.”
Jared OlroydOwner, Specialty Cleaning Agents
Quote in under 2 hours

Post your roof moisture survey free

Give the roof size and build-up and what you have seen inside. Pilots with radiometric thermal payloads will quote you.

Overhead view of tiled rooftops in a dense town at golden hour