Measuring up without a drone was a real time eater
Dachdeckermeister Linde roofs mostly pitched roofs in the Braunschweig area. Measurements here used to be taken by hand or from counted tiles. Today the 3D model sits on the second screen while the quote is being written next to it.
Source: Linde Dachdeckermeister, linde-dach.de
“I work on a second screen alongside it, so I can transfer every measurement straight into the quote.”
Master roofer | Linde Dachdeckermeister | Pitched and flat roofs in the Braunschweig area | Drones: DJI Mini 3 Pro
A family business with 30 people
Dachdeckermeister Linde works with 30 employees in the Braunschweig area. What the company roofs is mostly pitched roofs, with flat roofs alongside them, so the ordinary programme of a roofing business: homes, refurbishments, everything between the ridge and the eaves.
Maximilian Linde looks after the part of it that does not happen on the roof, and that is more than the words office work suggest. Customer care sits with him, meaning consulting, conversations and arrangements, and so does site management, quotation, final invoicing and running the job. And on top of that, measuring up, which is where every quote begins and what the final invoice hangs on as well.
That is what makes the measuring question more than busywork in a company of this size. Whoever prepares the quote needs the measurement early, and needs it right: whatever is set too low in the quote, the company pays for later in material, and whatever is set too high costs the job.
Measured by hand, and the tiles counted
Before the drone there were two ways of doing it, and both were awkward. Roofs were measured by hand, or the tiles were counted off a photo, because their width is known and the area can be worked out from there.
“Compared with today, measuring up without the drone was a real time eater.”
The time it took was only half of it. The other half was accuracy. A measurement built from counted tiles is an approximation, and how good it is depends on the photo, on the angle and on how patiently somebody counts. Dormers, valleys and anything else on the roof do not make it better. Whatever is off does not catch anyone’s eye in the quote, it catches up with them on site.
Five to ten minutes in the air
Today a DJI Mini 3 Pro flies the building, in five to ten minutes depending on its size. That is no longer a visit of its own, it happens on the side while somebody is there anyway.
The photos then go into the Airclip Cloud, and the finished model opens in the viewer in the browser, with nothing to install. Anyone who wants it can have the images checked over by a support engineer free of charge, which does cost processing time. Linde uses both routes, depending on what suits: if the quote can wait, the check runs with it, and if it cannot, he takes the model straight away.
The model sits next to the quote
Measuring no longer happens on paper but in the model itself, and it happens while the quote is being written.
“I work on a second screen alongside it, so I can transfer every measurement straight into the quote.”
The detour via a note that gets typed up later is gone, and with it the mistakes that come from that route. This is where the time saved becomes obvious to him.
The model also does something no measurement ever could: it shows the roof the way it looks on the day, from every angle and at a resolution that is worth looking at closely. Small and large defects show up on screen, before anybody drives out a second time. For the customer conversation that means Linde can say what condition the roof is actually in, and show it on an image the customer understands.
What he would tell a colleague
“Airclip delivers really good quality, good resolution, few gaps, the upload is very easy and you get quick access to the models you want. Both the service and the value for money are right.”
What he values beyond that is that the software does not stand still. New features keep arriving, and what it does today is not the state he started with.