During an adverse weather event, your roof can suffer significant damage. Rain, snow, sleet, ice, wind and hail can pound your roof directly and can also cause other items such as tree branches to fall on it.
Sometimes, roof damage following a storm is quite obvious. This can include whole sections of the roof shingles blown off, a tree branch that has pierced through the top of the roof or even worse effects.
At times, though, it can be more challenging to spot damage on a roof, such as when the source of that damage is hail. Because hail can cause significant issues to a roof, it’s important to thoroughly inspect your roof following a storm.
If you aren’t a trained professional, though, you might not know what you should be looking for. Below, we provide a detailed guide about what a hail damage roof inspection involves, and the steps you should take if you suspect there’s significant damage.
Do I Have to Get on the Roof for a Hail Damage Inspection?
Fortunately, you may be able to spot hail damage to your home from the ground, without even having to climb on a ladder. This is very beneficial, as climbing a tall ladder to inspect your roof from above can be a dangerous proposition.
So, are some of the signs that your home has suffered hail damage that you can spot from the ground?
Before you even go outside, check the inside of your home for any signs of roof damage. This would come in the form of active leaks or wet spots on the ceilings of the rooms in the highest level of your home.
Make sure to not just check the ceilings of your top floor, but also the interior roofline in your attic. If you see wet spots, active leaks or can see sunlight breaking through following a hailstorm, it’s likely your roof has more significant damage.
From outside, you can walk around your home and look for other signs of hail damage. This could be dings, dents and other marks to any painted or wood surface such as your siding, shed, garage, deck and other structures. You can look for the same on your gutters and downspouts, which might get dented by hail.
Hail could also cause damage to window frames and screens. You might also spot water splatter marks on things such as your car, mailbox, grill, garage door, AC unit and anything else that’s metal.
If you spot this damage, the next step would be to inspect the damage from above. This isn’t always recommended for most homeowners.
Instead, if you spot any of these potential signs of hail damage from the ground, contact a local roofing company that you can trust and that has great reviews, such as The Roof Resource.
What Are Signs of Hail Damage on Top of Your Roof?
If you decided to climb on a ladder yourself to inspect your roof, there are some things you can look for that could be indicative of hail damage. These are things you should be able to spot from the top of the ladder, without having to climb on the roof itself — which is definitely not advisable unless you’re a professional.
First, look in your gutters. If you spot a lot of granules there, it’s possible that it came from your roof.
Asphalt roofs are made up of many tiny granules, and these are susceptible to being displaced by falling hail. Once they’re displaced, they will typically run-off your roof and down into your gutters, just like water.
Next, check some of the other structures on your roof. What you’re looking for is any obvious damage to vents, chimneys and flashing. This could be dents and dings, missing sections or holes.
Finally, take a look at the roof surface itself to see if there are any holes in it. This might be tougher to spot unless the damage is big — such as a gigantic hole in the roof — or the damage happened near the edge of the roof, where your ladder is located.
What Can a Local Roofer Do for Me During a Hail Damage Roof Inspection?
While even inexperienced homeowners can identify some of the common signs of hail damage by following the tips above, a full assessment of your roof can, and should, only be done by a trained professional.
When you hire a trusted local roofing company, you’ll be gaining peace of mind knowing that they’ll be able to spot not just the most common signs that your roof must have suffered hail damage, but the actual damage itself. They’ll then be able to fully assess what the resulting damage was and what the best solution to the problem is.
Not only can trained roofing contractors climb onto your roof safely to inspect it up close and personal, they can use state-of-the-art technology to help their cause.
For example, The Roof Resource can fly a drone over your home to fully inspect any potential hail damage to your roof above. Not only does this give us a bird’s eye view of each and every inch of your roof, it helps us to document this damage in detail.
Doing so provides us with in-depth information about what damage has been done to your roof, which allows us to then create a detailed plan about the best course of action to fix the problem.
Not only that, but this photographic and videographic evidence can serve as evidence to your insurance company that your roof has suffered significant roof damage, that the damage was sustained by a covered event under your insurance policy and that you deserve to have your roof replacement project covered by your insurance company.
Contact The Roof Resource for a Hail Damage Roof Inspection
As a homeowner, it’s always a good idea to know what some of the most common signs of hail damage to your home are. This will help you quickly identify whether you might have a bigger problem than you can see from the ground, which should prompt you to contact a local roofing company you can trust, like The Roof Resource.
When we come to your home, we do a full hail damage roof inspection, both from the ground and from above, to fully assess the situation. Then, we can come up with a plan of action that’s most appropriate for you, including a full replacement of your roof with the best asphalt products on the market.
We have years of experience in the roofing industry, and our novel approach to roof replacement projects often result in customers getting a new roof at 50% less than retail cost.
Not only that, but we work directly with insurance companies to help our customers get their roof replacement projects covered fully by their insurance policies following hailstorms and other weather-related events.
For more information, or to get a free proposal, contact us today.