How to cut your Facade Inspection Time by 98%

Nobody gets excited about facade inspections.

You get a notice from BCA, call around for quotes and wait weeks for a gondola crew to show up. Then, you watch them spend the best part of the month slowly working their way up your building while your tenants complain about the noise and the blocked footpaths.

We’ve seen it a hundred times and we hurt for those who don’t know there’s a better way to do this.

What a Traditional Inspection Actually Looks Like

A typical scaffolding or gondola setup needs 10 to 15 workers and a certified engineer on site, with the whole process taking around 24 days.

That’s not a typo. It takes twenty-four days to inspect a single building.

And a significant portion of that time isn’t spent inspecting. It’s spent coordinating, setting up the equipment, notifying tenants and preparing the crew. Once the report is done, it’ll be based on what the inspector could catch from wherever the gondola happened to stop. That means it’s highly prone to human error and could carry legal weight down the line.

This sentiment is widespread across Singapore’s construction community: traditional facade inspection is slow, resource-intensive, and carries real safety risks for the workers.

Moreover, the reliability of the inspection depends on the experience of whoever is doing it, and sometimes, the work gets passed down to lower-skilled workers who may not have the competency and shrewdness that the job requires.

So you’re paying a lot, waiting a long time, and hoping that the person on the gondola knows what they’re looking at. Not exactly a confidence-inspiring process for something with S$20,000 fines attached to it.

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One Pilot. One Drone. Half a Day.

A drone doesn’t need a gondola. Or a 15-person crew. Or three weeks of setup. 

It needs one certified pilot, one flight plan, and a few hours on a weekend morning (yes, we fly on the weekends).

A drone inspection of a typical 10 to 20-storey building takes 4 to 8 hours. Scaffolding setup alone takes 1 to 3 weeks before inspection can even begin, then another 1 to 2 weeks of actual inspection work. Total with scaffolding: 3 to 6 weeks. Total with a drone: 1 to 2 days.

That’s not a marginal improvement. That’s a completely different way of doing things.

And the coverage is actually better too. A gondola inspector can only see what’s directly in front of them at any given moment. A drone captures 90 to 100% of the building surface in a single flight session. Every facade, every elevation, every corner is documented with high-quality that  can be revisited in the future.

We’ve done this on condominiums with 23 floors, shophouses, industrial buildings, and power plants with irregular structures. 

A drone is not limited by the shape of a building or the irregularity of the terrain. If you’d like to take a closer look, here’s how using a drone compares to other traditional methods:

ASpect	Scaffolding	Gondola/BMU	Rope Access	Drone Inspection
Total Duration	4–6 weeks	3-5 Weeks	2-4 weeks	1-2 days
Setup Time	1–3 weeks	1-2 weeks	3-7 days	1-2 hours
Crew size	10–15 workers	8-12 workers	4-6 workers	1-2 personnel
Site disruption	Very High	High	Medium	Minimal
Coverage	Good	Limited	Selective	90-100% of facade
Data Received	Basic Photos	Basic Photos	Selective Photos	Geotagged, HD archive
Satefy Risk	High	High	High	Very low
Relative Cost	Highest	High	Medium to High	Significantly lower

But does the BCA approve this?

Yes. The Commissioner of Building Control has officially approved the use of drone systems under the PFI regime, which follows the TR-78 format. Periodic Facade Inspection (PFI) | Building and Construction Authority 

Moreover, a lot of Competent Persons now specifically request drone data because it gives them more complete coverage than a gondola ever could. From a gondola, the inspector can only examine what’s directly in front of them. A drone gives them the whole building at once.

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Why This Matters More Than People Realise

Singapore’s buildings are getting older fast. The ones built in the 1980s and 1990s are hitting the 20-year mark in big numbers right now. And Singapore’s unforgiving climate with year-round heat and humidity accelerates wear and tear on building exteriors in ways you don’t notice until something falls.

That’s not a hypothetical, it’s a real hazard: Falling windows and cladding have actually injured people in Singapore.

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What Working With APS Looks Like

We always start with a free site assessment, looking at building height, your proximity to airports, and whether a tether system is needed.

Sites within 5km of either airport require a tether by law and this is something that catches a lot of people off guard.

Most drone companies in Singapore don’t have a tether system, which means they simply cannot get the permit approved for your site.

We do, and we can get you access to areas that would typically be restricted.

On the day of the flight we run a full sequential inspection of the facade. Every panel and elevation is captured in high resolution and delivered to an appointed Competent Person for assessment.

After every inspection, you will get a searchable digital archive of your building’s condition which you can use for maintenance planning and documentation.

How long till you get the report?

3 working days from the shoot. And you effectively save yourself 23 days of setup and unnecessary overheads. 

That’s the difference a drone makes.

Want to see what your inspection report looks like before you commit? Get a free sample PFI report from us.