Cladding Inspection Singapore — Drone Assessment of ACP, Metal & Rainscreen Facades

What Is Cladding Inspection?

Cladding is the non-structural outer skin fixed to the face of a building. It carries none of the building's load — its job is to weatherproof the structure, insulate it and give it an architectural finish — but it is exposed to everything the environment throws at the facade, and it is held on by fixings that have to survive decades of wind, heat and rain. Cladding inspection is the systematic assessment of that outer skin: the panels themselves, the joints and sealant between them, and the concealed fixings and support rails that keep each panel attached to the wall behind.

Modern Singapore facades use a wide family of cladding materials. Aluminium composite panels (ACP) and solid aluminium sheet dominate commercial and mixed-use towers; metal cassette systems, terracotta and ceramic tiles, natural stone and granite slabs, and ventilated rainscreen assemblies over insulation are all common. Each behaves differently, fails differently and demands a slightly different eye during inspection. What they share is that a loose or detaching panel high on a building is a direct falling-debris hazard, which is why cladding sits at the heart of Singapore's facade inspection obligations.

Because cladding is fixed away from the wall and its fasteners are usually hidden behind the panel face, the early signs of failure are easy to miss from the ground. A backed-out rivet, a disengaging cassette hook or moisture tracking through a rainscreen cavity give almost no warning at street level. A dedicated cladding inspection is built specifically to surface these concealed failure modes across the whole facade before a panel works loose.

ACP Cladding and the Fire-Safety Question

Aluminium composite panels deserve their own attention. An ACP is a sandwich — two thin aluminium face skins bonded either side of a lightweight core — and it is the core that matters for fire. Cores fall broadly into three types: polyethylene (PE), a plastic core that is combustible and can spread flame up a facade; fire-retardant (FR), where mineral fillers reduce the combustible content; and A2, a largely mineral core classified as limited combustibility. From the street, a PE-cored panel and an A2-cored panel can look identical, yet their fire behaviour is entirely different.

After a series of high-profile facade fires overseas, combustible external cladding has come under close scrutiny in Singapore. SCDF and BCA have moved to identify and manage buildings clad in combustible ACP, and building owners are increasingly expected to know what is on their facade. A cladding inspection is the practical first step: it confirms whether a facade is clad in composite panels, records the extent, layout and condition of that cladding, and flags panels showing damage or delamination that would be relevant to any fire-safety review.

It is important to be precise about what a visual inspection can and cannot establish. Drone imagery can identify aluminium composite cladding and map exactly where it sits on the building — but it cannot confirm the core classification. Whether a panel is PE, FR or A2 is determined by the original product documentation and delivery records, and where those are missing, by taking a physical sample and testing it to the relevant fire standard. Our role is to give the owner and competent person an accurate, comprehensive panel map so that any core investigation is properly scoped rather than guessed at.

Cladding Defects We Detect

Our inspections are structured around the specific ways an external skin deteriorates. Each defect is identified, photographed, mapped to a facade grid and panel reference, and passed to your competent person for classification.

How Drone Cladding Inspection Works

We inspect cladding under BCA's TR 78 technical reference for drone-based facade inspection, which sets the camera, flight and reporting standards a compliant inspection must meet. A drone flies pre-planned paths across every elevation at a consistent standoff, so that image scale and overlap stay uniform from the podium up to the crown of the building, and no panel is left uncaptured.

Two capabilities run in parallel. High-resolution visual capture resolves the detail that decides whether a panel is safe — the state of each rivet and fixing, whether cassette edges are lifting, the condition of joint sealant, and any delamination, denting or coating breakdown on the panel face. Radiometric thermal imaging then reveals what the eye cannot: moisture trapped behind rainscreen panels, debonding where a face skin has parted from its core, missing or slumped insulation, and damp tracking into the substrate behind the cladding line all register as distinct thermal patterns.

The advantages over traditional rope access on a clad facade are decisive:

• Complete coverage — every panel on every elevation is imaged, not just the vertical drop-lines an abseiler can reach on each descent.
• No contact, no risk — the cladding is never loaded by climbers or anchors, and there is no work-at-height exposure for inspectors on a facade that may already be unstable.
• Hidden-defect detection — thermal imaging finds debonding and cavity moisture that a visual-only survey cannot see behind the panels.
• Traceable evidence — every finding is geo-tagged and mapped, giving your competent person a precise, auditable record for the BCA submission.

After capture, the imagery is assembled into a full facade mosaic. Each defect is annotated, described and located to a panel reference, then compiled into a data package your competent person uses to produce the professional assessment and PFI report.

Cladding Systems We Inspect

Cladding comes in several distinct families, each with its own detailing and characteristic failure points. Our methodology adapts to the system on your building.

Cladding Under Singapore's PFI Regime

Under the Building Control Act, buildings more than 13 metres tall that obtained their Temporary Occupation Permit more than 13 years ago must undergo periodic facade inspection every 7 years. That obligation covers the entire external facade, and cladding is the largest visible part of it — not a separate or optional element. When BCA issues a facade inspection order, the appointed competent person must assess every cladding type on the building alongside glazing, render and any other facade component.

Cladding findings are classified using BCA's three-category system. Minor cosmetic issues such as light staining or coating fade are Category 1 (monitor). Progressive problems like localised joint-sealant failure or early corrosion typically fall into Category 2 (repair within a set timeframe). Loose, lifting or detaching panels — the defects that threaten falling debris — are Category 3, requiring immediate rectification and, where necessary, protective canopies below the affected elevation. Complete, defect-mapped drone data lets your competent person make those calls with confidence and defend them in the BCA submission.

Why Choose SG Drone Inspections

We are a specialist drone facade inspection provider in Singapore, focused on delivering the accurate, fully-mapped data that competent persons need to sign off complex clad facades.

Frequently Asked Questions