Dartmouth drone survey, Devon

Dartmouth is one of the TQ6 postcodes we cover, sitting about 25.4 miles out from Exeter. Getting there is the A38 and then the A384 and A3122 down to the river, which for us is a comfortable run out from Exeter rather than a special trip.

Dartmouth bookings are priced off the address and the brief, not the postcode itself: the fixed price agreed before the visit is the same formula whether it's TQ6 or Exeter.

A short run out to Dartmouth also keeps a weather reschedule cheap for us. Nobody in TQ6 is waiting on a wasted half-day's drive if the forecast for South Hams turns.

A Dartmouth flight in TQ6 carries the same CAA registration and Coverdrone cover as a job in Exeter itself, checked before the aircraft leaves the case, whatever South Hams it's flying over.

The property stock in Dartmouth runs like this: An exceptional stock of timber-framed and jettied merchant houses around Bayards Cove and the Butterwalk, Georgian and Victorian terraces climbing the hill, and the Britannia Royal Naval College dominating the skyline. Different TQ6 roofs need different flight lines, but a Dartmouth survey works the same way whichever one is in front of us.

The ground itself, around Dartmouth: A deep-water port on the west bank of the Dart, built on ground so steep that streets become stairs, with the castle and the river mouth to the south. That shapes where the drone can launch from in TQ6 as much as anything else, sorted before the surveyor turns up rather than worked out on the day. Dartmouth Castle is the kind of local landmark that makes a TQ6 address in Dartmouth easy to picture, not far from Bayards Cove.

A chimney check is a common ask around Dartmouth, usually paired with a general roof look while the aircraft is already up over a TQ6 property.

Dartmouth sits within South Hams, Devon, which is how we group the round internally as much as how the TQ6 postcode reads on an envelope.

Dartmouth is covered as part of the wider South Hams area, which includes Totnes, Brixham and Kingsbridge. That breadth in TQ6 is really the point of working from one base rather than several.

For a Dartmouth job specifically, the TQ6 postcode tells us which South Hams run it fits into, and the dates tell us when to start looking at the weather.

Nothing about South Hams changes what happens after the flight. A written report within 48 hours goes out for Dartmouth the same way it does for a TQ6 job right in Exeter.

The same run usually takes in Salcombe as well, and closer to Dartmouth itself, Britannia Royal Naval College and River Dart are the kind of landmarks that make an address easy to place before we've even driven out.