Builders Can Save Time, Save Lives with High-Flying Drones
Whether it’s to check on the progress of a 25,000-square-foot garden being built in a Tuscany vineyard, or getting a high-level view of an office tower development, drones can cut to the chase for a variety of commercial real estate disciplines, from structural engineering to brokerage. Among the quantities in which drones can represent a savings is one of the most precious to CRE professionals, namely time.
“The head office can see what’s going on, and the safety team, the costing team, the designers—all of them can contribute to the project, share data and comment on it, without actually going to the job,” DroneDeploy’s Mike Winn told the New York Times.
Among the data that drones can furnish from building sites are digital images, maps and other files that can be shared in a matter of minutes, he said. Winn founded the San Francisco-based company in 2013.
Drones may also improve construction-site safety. Before drones became readily available, Winn said, measuring the roof of a house for a solar panel installation required “a guy with a tape measure to climb up there.” The results often weren’t worth the risk in terms of accurate measurements.
The dangers are even greater at construction sites for skyscrapers, John Murphy Jr., a contractor on the 58-story Paramount Miami Worldcenter, told the Times. In the pre-drone era, he said, workers seeking access to the exterior of a high-rise were “dropped over the side” in so-called swing stages, small platforms that hang from cables. These swing stages are precarious in high winds. “No one wants to go out there,” Murphy said. “It’s scary.”
Falls accounted for more than one-third of the 991 deaths that occurred in the construction industry during 2016, the Times reported, citing the latest figures available from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. That number could be reduced over time with greater use of drones for quality-control inspections and similar missions, as Murphy and his team did on the Miami project.
Drones can also play a role in marketing commercial properties, as some of the leading CRE firms–and Connect Creative clients–will attest. Click here to find out more about Connect Creative’s suite of creative and strategic solutions.
For comments, questions or concerns, please contact Paul Bubny
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