Boston requires your facade to be inspected. A drone gets it done.
The City of Boston requires owners of tall and high-rise buildings to have their exterior walls inspected on a fixed cycle and certified safe. The ordinance expressly allows drone technology in that inspection — and that's exactly what we fly.
Official source: City of Boston Code, Ordinances §9-9.12 — Inspection of Exterior Walls and Appurtenances (boston.gov, PDF).
The exterior-wall inspection ordinance, in plain terms.
Passed by the City Council in 2022, §9-9.12 makes building owners responsible for proving — on a schedule — that their facade is sound. Here is what it asks of you.
Which buildings
Any exterior wall over 70 ft tall or classified high-rise — plus unoccupied buildings over 35,000 cu ft. One-, two- and three-family homes are excluded.
How often
Occupied structures must be inspected at least once every five years. Unoccupied structures must be inspected at least once a year.
Who can inspect
A Massachusetts-licensed Registered Professional — a structural PE or a registered architect — must conduct or supervise the inspection and seal the report.
What gets filed
An Exterior Wall Inspection Report and Affidavit, with a $200 fee, filed with the Commissioner within 30 days. No building may be occupied without a valid Exterior Wall Certificate.
How it's graded
Every wall is classified Safe, Safe with a Repair & Maintenance Program, or Unsafe — each condition documented with photographs and probable cause.
If it's unsafe
Owners must protect the public within 24 hours and begin repairs within 10 days. Missed inspections or unsafe conditions carry $300-per-day fines.
The ordinance names drone technology by name.
"The Registered Professional may use other methods of inspection as deemed appropriate, including the use of digital imaging, video and drone technology appropriate to complete a comprehensive inspection…"
— §9-9.12 (d)(iii), Inspection Procedures
The ordinance still requires a hands-on physical inspection of a representative sample from a scaffold or other observation platform — so a drone doesn't replace your Registered Professional. It makes their job faster, safer and far more complete: we fly the whole envelope and hand the engineer high-resolution, documented imagery to certify against.
Compliance-grade facade capture, no swing stage required.
Full-envelope coverage
Close-range imagery of every elevation — cladding, sealant, masonry, parapets and appurtenances — indexed to orientation and floor.
Radiometric thermal
Temperature-calibrated scans surface trapped moisture and water intrusion behind the facade, not just what's visible at the surface.
No lane closures, no scaffold
We capture from the air in a single visit — no swing stage, sidewalk shed or street permit to mobilize the survey.
Engineer-ready deliverables
Annotated, geo-referenced imagery your Registered Professional can cite directly in the Exterior Wall Inspection Report.