writ­ten 5/19/25, updat­ed 5/19/25

Some­times you want to view your roof. You don’t want to pay a pro­fes­sion­al to come do it you don’t have to, but you also want to know if there’s dam­age that needs to be addressed. Say, you live in house with more than one-sto­ry and you real­ly don’t have a lad­der nor want to climb that high, or you sim­ply don’t feel com­fort­able on one (espe­cial­ly by your­self! I knew a capa­ble, sin­gle man whose lad­der kicked out and he land­ed on his feet 2 sto­ries down which frac­tured both ankles and his back. True sto­ry). Here are some options avail­able to you with­out cost­ing an arm and a leg or a back mon­e­tar­i­ly and phys­i­cal­ly (hope­ful­ly).

Methods

Dis­claimer: There are many dif­fer­ent types of sit­u­a­tions and house con­fig­u­ra­tions out there. Also, I am NOT a pro­fes­sion­al, just a DIY­er in a town­house.

Camera on Stick — Easiest, Cheapest Method

Mate­ri­als: Livestream­ing Cam­era, Pole (broom, gar­den, PVC pipe, any­thing sol­id and strong), Duct Tape, Phone/Viewing Screen

Cost: You can get a decent cam­era (beware unrep­utable brands and apps in case they release mal­ware into your home inter­net sys­tem) for less than $15, Dol­lar Tree sells broom han­dles and tape for $1.25 each. Assum­ing you own a smart­phone and noth­ing else, you can do this for under $20.

Instruc­tions:

• Most hous­es these days have wi-fi con­nect­ed secu­ri­ty cam­eras that can livestream, a broom or some oth­er strong pole(s), and tape
• Decide on the best place to view your roof from (e.g. upstairs win­dow)
• Duct tape your cam­era to the tip of the pole, mak­ing sure it’s secure
• If you need height, duct tape togeth­er a few of them mak­ing sure the pole over­lap is enough to stay strong when you extend it
• Open the cam­era app and start livestream­ing the cam­era
• If you want to and have the func­tion, hit the “Record” but­ton
• Extend your cam­era-on-a-stick towards the roof with a firm grip, and inspect it
• Watch video on phone lat­er

DONE. Easy Peasy.

Drone

Mate­ri­als: Drone, Phone

Cost: At least $200 for a decent drone (any less and it’s worth­less and pos­si­ble secu­ri­ty risk), $15 sub­scrip­tion fee for app

Would be fine if you already have a good qual­i­ty drone or want one to begin with, but I was­n’t pay­ing $200–400 for a drone just to look at the roof. Instead, I spent 2 week­ends try­ing this fan­cy method with 2 cheap drones ($130 togeth­er) before I real­ized I wast­ed good mon­ey. This is use­ful and easy only if you already have a decent qual­i­ty drone and/or live in a one-sto­ry house. My first drone could fly decent­ly, but the app (3rd par­ty sep­a­rate from the drone sell­er) not only failed to load, but tried to hack into the inter­net sys­tem of my house both times I tried to unsuc­cess­ful­ly launch it. So, I got a sec­ond drone with its own view­ing screen and no need to con­nect an app, but the drone itself was utter garbage and was impos­si­ble to fly. Absolute waste of mon­ey. Deter­mined to make it work, I paid for the small­est cam­era ($42.99) I could find (after hours of scan­ning the inter­net) that did­n’t need phone con­nec­tion to work, just an SD card. I taped it to my first drone and tried to fly that up to the roof. Ter­ri­fied that it would fly off on its own (I’m not very good at fly­ing drones, so I crash often), I tied a string to it, but it did­n’t mat­ter in the end because the range between the con­troller and drone was about 1 sto­ry tops. Total FAILURE and an utter waste of mon­ey ($172.97. OUCH)! The only good things that came about this is that, 1) Now I know I don’t real­ly care to fly drones any­more, and 2) It’s a fun gad­get to antag­o­nize the dog with.

Instruc­tion: Very sim­ple

• Con­nect drone to phone
• Fly up
• View roof
• Don’t Crash
• Review footage

Com­plete!

Others

Sim­i­lar to the drone, you could try a Rock Crawler RC Car with a cam­era either built-in or taped to it. It’s eas­i­er to con­trol than a drone, espe­cial­ly the slow­er speed of the Rock Crawlers, though beware the tilt of the roof, if you can lift it onto the roof with a grab­ber arm or some­thing. Just don’t dri­ve off the edge! I’d tie a string or fish­ing line around it in case it does (just don’t get it tan­gled in the wheels).

An Endo­scope could be use­ful? You could shove it along the roof? It’s flex­i­ble enough to snake around things, though the small field of view might not be so great.

Pet Rat with Cam­era and Leash… Maybe not. A hawk might get it.

You could hire some­one to per­ma­nent­ly mount a Solar Pow­ered Cam­era some­where up there, like the chim­ney. That way you can view it at any time. Weath­er could be a prob­lem, as well as retriev­ing it if you need­ed to.