Key takeaway: Protecting Surveyors off the roof and utilizing drones as a substitute permits Contractors to reclassify them as lower-risk workers, thus decreasing insurance coverage premiums and employees’ compensation funds. Usually, the financial savings from insurance coverage alone will greater than pay for launching a drone program.
Operating a photo voltaic contracting enterprise at scale requires quite a lot of bills that may add up. Nonetheless, there may be one large expense—insurance coverage and employees’ compensation for Surveyors who go on roofs—which will now not be crucial.
By investing in expertise like drones and an information seize app, Surveyors can keep away from climbing on the roof. Consequently, even small groups of 3-5 Surveyors might understand as much as $65,000 (or extra) in annual financial savings.
Right here’s how the financial savings work, and why it’s price your time to look into it.
The true value of handbook surveying
Past wage and advantages, a Surveyor climbing on roofs accounts for important bills.
When a Surveyor has to climb on roofs, they’re categorized as a high-risk employee, which means insurance coverage premiums can simply be 5-10x or greater than workers who don’t climb on roofs. Each Surveyor additionally wants handheld measuring instruments (e.g. tape measure and scratch paper) and a giant ladder. Relying on the job, your Surveyors can also require harnesses, a SunEye or Pathfinder for shade evaluation, and probably a big van or truck to hold all these instruments.
For finance leaders, these are excessive prices because the overwhelming majority of Contractors have Surveyors conduct on-site surveys in some unspecified time in the future earlier than development. On high of onerous prices, accidents are at all times a threat. Surveyors know this already, with 60% saying they don’t really feel protected on roofs and 56% saying the least gratifying a part of their job is capturing roof knowledge. Additional, dropping gear off the roof isn’t unusual. All of those accidents may cause irreparable hurt to not simply that worker’s life but in addition your organization’s tradition, repute, and skill to rent proficient people.
One change eliminates hundreds in annual prices
If you happen to can get rid of the necessity for roof climbs for surveying, you may considerably scale back or get rid of your backend prices. Nonetheless, you continue to must seize granular roof and website knowledge, so as to not compromise the standard of a design and set up. Satellite tv for pc and different aerial imagery won’t suffice; utilizing drone expertise is the one choice in the intervening time. The fee financial savings from insurance coverage alone can greater than pay for the set-up prices of a drone program.
Right here’s how the advantages stack up:
- Surveyors can drive their very own autos or a lot inexpensive, smaller firm autos.
- Surveyors gained’t want costly, clunky instruments for roof climbs.
- For some firms, you gained’t want two surveyors for classy, outdated, or steep roofs. One surveyor will suffice.
- Surveyors may be reclassified from high-risk employees to a clerical or different “on-the-road” kind of worker.
Listed below are the financials per surveyor:
Even after together with the price of buying a drone and paying for Scanifly’s software program, the per-Surveyor delta of handbook strategies in comparison with drones is between $7,500 and $16,000 in favor of making a drone program. If you happen to extrapolate these financial savings throughout a website survey crew, together with common Scanifly software program prices, the financial savings may be as much as $65,000 or extra.
Let’s additional discover prices throughout groups of three and 5 Surveyors (word: these are based mostly on the above per-Surveyor figures):
Surveyors with drone expertise are inclined to command greater salaries. Nonetheless, this extra value isn’t solely coated in financial savings from insurance coverage, but it surely’s additionally absorbed via capability. Drones make Surveyors as much as 5x extra environment friendly, even with huge industrial jobs masking thousands and thousands of sq. footage, so that you unlock important worker capability.
Drones additionally deliver extra effectivity and accuracy to your design and procurement course of, by eliminating revisions or quickly rushing up mission timelines, so the extra pay for Surveyors delivers advantages all through your entire mission lifecycle.
See the financial savings for your self
These numbers are based mostly on averages, so we will’t make any guarantees. That mentioned, we’re assured it’s price a glance to see when you can each scale back insurance coverage prices and discover further efficiencies like solely needing to ship one Surveyor to a website fairly than two or three.
We additionally understand that typically, your crew might must climb on the roof. That’s okay! We all know that testing roof construction or shingle well being, particularly when the attic isn’t accessible, is important. You may and may worth in both momentary insurance coverage for particular days or look into protecting insurance coverage for a specialist Surveyor whereas reclassifying others. It will look completely different from group to group, so the bottom line is to have a look at what you want.
What we’re proposing is straightforward: Staying off or no less than minimizing roof climbs is a approach to maintain Surveyors safer and scale back hidden prices. Investing in drone expertise and Scanifly’s platform means you enhance accuracy on the similar time. For all of the potential advantages, it’s price your time to research, and it might pay for some or the entire prices.
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