This post is about the 3 unique uses for a drone we just recently discovered while doing home improvement projects for Acorns Cottage!
Prior to the pandemic, our family traveled quite a bit. We regularly visited family and friends in Italy and made a few epic trips to the Philippines to see my 97 year-old Lola (grandma). With each journey we regretted not owning a drone to capture the breathtaking images of each country.
We live in a city that prohibits drone usage so we never fully entertained the need other than for our international travel. But now we own a cottage in the San Bernardino Mountains. As of this writing, small drone usage is permitted there.
So under the tree last Christmas lay an obscure small box neatly wrapped and ensconced among other gifts. Our kids claim genuine surprise when they unwrapped the “special” family gift this year–a DJI Mavic Mini drone. Since we were at our city home at the time, using our new toy had to wait. But not too long.
As we had planned, we journeyed up the mountain after our Christmas lunch where we spent the rest of our Christmas break. I don’t recall a day we didn’t fly the drone. There were moments when the wind picked up or the snow fell too heavily. But when the skies cleared, the drone buzzed above us.
Small drone with camera
Luca and the boys had already checked out the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules, the San Bernardino County regulations and ordinances. Then they read through the manual and watched a few educational videos. And with pure excitement and curiosity, they sent the drone on its maiden voyage.
The purpose of the first flights was to give each person a turn and feel for how to handle the drone. It takes quite a bit of hand-eye coordination, I’ve decided just as an observer. Even if the DJI Mavic Mini is a compact piece of equipment.
Then the flights following served to actually capture the first stunning aerial images of our home, property, hills, mountain, lake and valley. Snow had just fallen and the white capped mountains provided mesmerizing scenery.
There were plenty of close calls with one instance where the drone flew directly into a snow berm, thanks to one of our sons. It was fine. It was all fine. You have to rationalize that the only way to accustom yourself is by using it repeatedly. And hoping not to make costly mistakes.
3 unique uses for a drone
But it wasn’t too long after using the drone that we saw the many advantages of using it very practically. And we’ve used it more for those reasons ever since. Although we have every intention of flying it in different areas of the mountain, the weather and time has kept us in the cottage or at our city home.
So for now, we use it for the occasional “stunning view shot” but mostly for home improvement purposes. And it has served us well! Below are the 3 unique uses for a drone.
Drone for taking pictures
We have exterior areas of our mountain cottage that are inaccessible to us currently.
The back side of our house facing the lake is 4 stories high on a steep down slope. Luckily, we have 2 decks from which we enjoy the lake view. We also access that part of the facade of the house from those decks. One deck is on the fourth floor and other on the third floor. However, they do not span the whole side of the house. They cover a little less than half that side.
The problem lies in the fact that the side with 4 stories is also the preferred side of the woodpeckers. And those are smart pesky little creatures. Ever since we repaired some of the siding from woodpecker damage, one or two of them attempt to return regularly to reclaim their acorn granary.
With all the research we had done on Acorn Woodpeckers, we realized they were not going to go away quietly. Generations of woodpeckers worked on that side of our cottage. This was evidenced by the thousands and thousands of acorns that poured out from behind the siding when the workers pulled it off.
Although we’ve had the siding repaired and the trim painted white, two or three woodpeckers continue to sit on a tree branch nearby seemingly waiting to ambush the siding again. The annoying part is that they attack areas we can’t easily access to shoo them away or assess any potential new damage they may inflict.
Another drawback is that we don’t live at the cottage full-time although someone is there more often than not. While we’re there, we stay on top of shooing the woodpeckers away if they decide to pay a visit. But when we’re not there, I’m pretty sure they party; they must.
So one use we’ve made of the drone is to capture footage of all the corners of the house we can’t reach without scaffolding or even see with our eyes alone from the steep hill below it. One cool feature of the drone is the still shot it can take.
One still shot demonstrated that the woodpeckers successfully drilled one hole into the corner of the siding. This alerted us to act quickly to repair the damage. How we went about with our DIY repair may seem clunky, but it worked.
Luca had to MacGyver a solution with a pole extension, roller pin, and repair putty. Before leaning out the fourth floor garage window with this contraption, he created a makeshift barrier with 2 x 4s across the window to prevent him from falling out.
From the deck, I provided Luca directions on where to affix the putty in the very corner of the siding under the eves. Luca followed my instructions almost blindly as he reached for the corner with the makeshift contraption. Then we hoped for the best.
Out came the drone shortly after. This is where the drone came in handy to assess how Luca did with the repair. And we discovered that he didn’t do a bad job at all! Bravo, Luca!
Drone for surveying
We have plans for this cottage. Big plans. Then after we crunch the numbers, we scale back and plan some more.
The big selling point of this cottage is the lake view. We believe the value of the house would increase considerably with decks that extend the whole side of the cottage. But not only. It would be really wonderful if we could possibly wrap at least one of the decks around the side of the cottage. By our estimation, that side of the cottage may have an awesome view of the lake.
Notice I used the word “may” because we are simply speculating. That’s another part of the cottage we can’t access at that height. We would be relying on our “guess” to make that determination because there’s nothing now to stand on. Unless we use scaffolding.
Mind you, the last and only time we had scaffolding installed for the siding repair alone cost us $4,000 on one half of one side of the house. We ended up needing more scaffolding than that at no extra charge, but a headache nonetheless.
Our mini drone was way cheaper. We used it to survey the area where people would be standing on our imaginary extended deck to see the view overlooking the lake. And it’s beautiful. If the drone images don’t lie, it would definitely be worth exploring the wrap-around deck.
We now have the flexibility of doing this exercise for each season. This is important. Our neighbors on the street below us have trees that extend rather high. High enough to potentially block our view of the lake on that side when the leaves are in full bloom.
But we can do that without having to erect scaffolding for each season. I love it!
Drone for roof inspection
And lastly, for now, we use it to check out how the roof and chimney are doing. There was a piece of flashing on the chimney that was not completely secured and it rattled furiously with the wind. Or that’s what we thought it was.
All we knew is that it was extremely annoying. But then we sent the drone up to check out the loose piece only to discover the issue was not external. Being able to rule out the external area of the chimney, our contractor and Luca found several ways to secure the noisy piece which they accessed internally. We’ve had a few wind storms since then and the sound of silence has been golden.
But since we were checking things out on the roof and chimney anyway, we took images of the area lacking proper gutter drainage. Conveniently, we could use that footage to send to the contractor so he can make a determination of cost for the work, etc.
Drone fun
We have thoroughly enjoyed this little piece of equipment and it’s brought us hours of fun learning how to control it and use it to our advantage. I absolutely love it when a high ticket item serves multiple purposes. In this case, we discovered the 3 unique uses for a drone for home improvement. But I’m almost certain we’ll discover more.
For now, we use it whenever we can to monitor the house and to capture magnificent vistas and sunsets. I can’t wait to see the edited aerial footage paired with music that my sons are working on!
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