A cold and frosty morning in Doncaster at Blyton Park Driving Centre – out with the drones and the BBC One Show team filming an article about potholes!
The One Show’s presenter Iwan Thomas presents the piece and overseas the competition judged by some eminent people in their field, Victoria Hazael (Cycling UK), Vince Crain (The AA), Keith Jones (Institution of Civil Engineers). The filming took place on Blyton Race Track in Lincolnshire, where three large potholes were repaired and reviewed. They will be testing out pothole repair technologies on the racing circuit itself and we will be providing supporting cinematography from an aerial perspective!
Watch the One Show here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPqk2OEMYpU
Solar String Testing: What the Curve Tells You That a Thermal Image Cannot
A thermal survey shows where a solar array is losing energy as heat. A string test shows how much a string is actually producing, and its I-V curve shows what kind of fault is holding it back. Some faults only the camera can see, others only the meter. This post explains what string testing measures, how the curve is read alongside the thermal images, and what to check about your own system before booking a combined survey of the array.
A Thermal Survey and a Building Survey Answer Different Questions
A building survey and a thermal survey both carry the word survey, and they answer different questions. One is a qualified professional's judgement on the condition of a structure. The other records where the envelope loses heat, admits air or holds moisture, under conditions written down at the time. Drone Media Imaging provides the second, and holds no surveying qualification. This is how the two work together, what each needs from the other, and why the boundary is what makes the evidence usable.
Which Building First? Thermal Survey Across a Property Portfolio
A thermal survey of one building answers a question about that building. A survey of a whole portfolio answers a different question, which is where the repair budget should go first. That second answer only holds if the surveys were designed to be compared, which means conditions logged per elevation, camera settings fixed and held, and capture geometry kept consistent from block to block. This is how a set of buildings becomes an ordered starting point rather than a stack of reports.
