Drone survey in Barnstaple

Barnstaple is open to Atlantic weather coming up the Taw estuary from the west with very little to break it. Rainfall is high and, more importantly, prolonged wetting is the main agent of decay on shaded slopes.

That distinction matters. A town that gets sudden heavy rain and then dries out has different problems from one where surfaces stay damp for weeks. Here it is the second, so organic growth, saturated timber at the eaves and softening mortar are the recurring findings rather than storm damage.

The centre around the Pannier Market and Butchers Row is Georgian and Victorian, with Victorian terraces on the slopes at Newport and Sticklepath, large post-war estates and modern development at Roundswell and Anchorwood.

The market buildings and the older commercial stock have long roofs and internal gutters, and those are the ones where a problem develops out of sight. On the terraces the usual party wall and shared valley questions apply.

Roundswell and the other trading estates carry large-span industrial roofs, which are surveyed for the usual reasons: area, fragility, active use below and a drainage picture that only resolves from above.

The Taw and the Long Bridge give open approaches on the river side of the town, and the Tarka Trail provides usable ground for standoff away from buildings.

Barnstaple serves a large rural hinterland, so work here frequently extends to farms and villages across North Devon in the same visit. Travel is inside the fixed price, which makes a group of buildings in one area a sensible way to book.

Wind off the estuary is the main scheduling factor, and the wooded slopes north of the town towards Exmoor give some shelter to properties on that side.

Rock Park, the Long Bridge and the quay put a good deal of the town within a few hundred metres of tidal water, and buildings that close to an estuary get salt-laden air even without a sea view. Owners in EX31 and EX32 are often surprised that corrosion is a factor at all this far from the open coast.

The practical result is that fixings and metalwork on the river side of the town wear faster than the same components a mile inland. Because those are small hidden components rather than whole coverings, they fail without warning and are only found in a close photograph or after something has already come loose.

For anybody weighing up whether a survey is worth it, that is the plain local answer: the covering is probably fine and the things holding it on are the part worth looking at.