Drone surveys in Dawlish, flown by the surveyor who writes them

Dawlish takes more punishment than almost anywhere else on this coast. South easterly gales throw sea water over the wall, and the cliff top estates above the town stand in unbroken wind with nothing between them and the Channel. Ridge, verge and flashing failures after a storm season are the normal state of affairs rather than an unlucky year.

That gives the survey work here a particular shape. A large share of it is post-storm: somebody has noticed a slipped tile or a stain on a ceiling and wants to know what else moved while they were not looking. The answer is usually more than they expected, because a gale that lifts one ridge tile has been working on the whole line.

The extensive post-war bungalow development on the cliff tops is the defining stock here and it has its own failure pattern. A bungalow presents a large roof area relative to its height, with long unbroken verges and a low ridge, and it usually carries concrete interlocking tile or, on extensions and garages, flat felt.

Long verges in high wind are a problem because the whole edge is in suction at once. Where the verge was pointed rather than mechanically fixed, the mortar goes in sections and then the tiles follow. Flat felt on a bungalow extension is the other recurring finding: it is old, it is out of sight from every window in the house, and the first sign of failure is usually inside.

Neither is visible from the ground. A bungalow is exactly the case where an owner assumes they can see their own roof because it is low, and cannot see the two thirds of it that faces away from the drive.

The town itself sits in a narrow valley cut into red sandstone cliffs, split by the Dawlish Water, with the main railway line running along the sea wall at the foot of it. Regency and Victorian terraces around The Lawn and the seafront hotels sit low and sheltered from the west but wide open to the south east.

That split geography means two properties a few hundred metres apart can be in completely different exposure, one tucked in the valley and one on the cliff edge. It is worth saying which you are when you enquire, because it changes what the survey is looking for before anyone leaves Exeter.

Modern estates inland at Dawlish Warren are a third case again, newer, lower and better fixed, where the survey question is more often about workmanship on a recent build than about weathering.

This is the town on the list where a flight is most often postponed, and that is the right outcome. Sea wall overtopping conditions are not survey conditions. Between systems, though, the same exposure that damages the buildings makes for very clean imagery: little vegetation on the roofs, clear light off the water, and coverings scoured rather than mossy.

The railway along the sea wall is a fixed feature of the geography and it is planned around rather than flown over. So is the beach in season. Neither is a difficulty on most addresses, but both are checked before a date is agreed.