Having a damaged roof due to hail? The roof is an important structural component of your house. If it gets compromised by storm, hail, or any other natural disaster, then you need to fix the problems soon. The hail damage will be affecting the strength of your roof.
In most cases, homeowners don’t have an idea about the hail damage. The primary reason behind this is that no one can identify the damage from the ground. To see the damage, you have to inspect the roof and the majority of the homeowners don’t do this.
As a homeowner, planning to inspect a house for a roof hail damage? Not aware of the thing you need to do? No need to worry! We are going to discuss all these things in the following blog. We will be looking at the following aspects regarding hail damage roof inspection:
- Signs that will tell that the hail damage has occurred at a house.
- Signs of hail damage on the roof.
- Size of hail that leads to roof damage.
- How hail damage on shingles look like?
4 Signs that Tell About Hail Damage on a Roof
There is no way to determine the amount of hail damage on a roof from the ground. The homeowner has to look for the signs and determine if there will be more damage at the top of the roof.
Remember that in some cases, if the damage is more, then a homeowner has to go for a full roof replacement instead of a simple roof repair. For replacement and repair, contact Cape Cod roofers of Corey & Corey. The experts will be identifying all the problems and will provide effective solutions to give a structurally durable roof to the customers.
The four things that should be checked are:
1- Check your dented gutters or downspouts. This might not be the case every time but if the roof is having significant hail damage, then the gutters will also have some impact damage.
2- Look for the damages done on siding and window sills/casing. Inspect your house‘s siding and window sill/casing for dings, dents, and other signs of impact. If these places are damaged to a greater extent, then the roof will be damaged too. Furthermore, do check the exposed metal surfaces like roof eaves, metal fascia to see the hail damage impact even if there is a faint ding.
3- Inspect your air conditioners and other outdoor items. It is very essential to check every area of your house for hail damage.
4- Do check for the damage to decks or on the painted wood surfaces. There is a possibility that these two places have been damaged by the hail. If you are able to see chipped paint, then this is definitely due to the hail impact.
Checking Hail Damage to Shingles and Roof Vents
Once you go up on your roof, there are many things that need to be looked at. The inspection list will include the skylights, vents, chimneys, shingles, and various other roof parts.
Check your roof vents and other things for any sign of damage. Identify any dings, dents, or any chipped surface present on it.
During the inspection, for hard to see impact areas like chimney cover, run your chalk sideways on the surface and it will show the points of hail impact. In the case of soft events, the damage will be very obvious. Most importantly, check your shingles. Note that you are not going to get a solid insurance claim without shingle damage.
Identifying Hail Damage on Shingles
Here are the two situations. Hail damage on the roof can be obvious and yet difficult to identify. An expert will be able to identify the hail damage on roof shingles. In the case of hail damage on shingles, you will see that surface granules are knocked off. You might be wondering, is there anything to worry about if few granules come loose? Majority of the people think that there is no hole but in reality the shingle has been compromised. With the passage of time, the water leakage issue can occur.
Planning to make an insurance claim? Note that the majority of the insurance companies want to see more than 8 hits on a roof within a 10ft x 10ft square on at least 3 sides of the roof. Mark every area using chalk to show the damaged area. Take the pictures of hail hits and shows it to the insurance company when they arrive at your house for inspection. This information is enough to determine whether there is a need for a new roof or not?
Inspecting Hail Damage on Metal Roof
Identifying hail damage on shingles is tricky but this is not the only roof type out there. Some houses are having a roof like clay, slate, wooden shake, and metal roofing. Remember that the wood shingles will be a break in the middle after getting hit by hail. Clay and slate roofing will be having cracks or gouges and metal roofing will be having dents. It is very easy to identify the hail damage on the metal roof.
Hail Spatter- Things You Must Know
Also called hail splatter. This occurs when a slushy type of hail leaves discolored stains or marks on the roof or appliances like AC units. Spatter is the evidence of hail and it helps to get an idea about the direction of hail and its size but the hail splatter marks do not result in claimable damage.
Size Hail That Leads to Roof Damage
Wondering, what size hail will damage a roof? On average, a hailstone with a size of 1’’ diameter will damage a common asphalt shingle. But following are the hail sizes when compared with some common objects:
Marble: It equals to 1/2-inch in diameter
Pea: It equals to 1/4-inch in diameter
Tennis Ball: It equals to 2½ inches
Golf Ball: It equals to 1½ inches
Baseball: It equals to 2¾ inches
Softball: It equals to 4 inches
Teacup: It equals to 3 inches
Nickel: It equals to 7/8-inch
Quarter: It equals to 1 inch
Dime or penny: It equals to 3/4-inch in diameter (This size or bigger than this is considered dangerous)
Damage Caused by Various Size Hail Stone on Different Roofing Material
Several studies and surveys are done to figure out the damage caused to different roofing material by various size hailstones. The details are below:
3-Tab fiberglass asphalt shingles: Damage may occur by a hail size of 1¼”
30-year laminated shingles: Damage may occur by a hail size of 1½”
Tab organic asphalt shingles: Damage may occur by a hail size of 1″
S-shaped concrete tiles: Damage may occur by a hail size of 2″
Built-up gravel roofing: Damage may occur by a hail size of 2″
Heavy cedar shakes: Damage may occur by a hail size of 1½”
Fiber-Cement tiles: Damage may occur by a hail size of 1¼”
Flat Concrete tiles: Damage may occur by a hail size of 1¼”
Cedar Shingles: Damage may occur by a hail size of 1¼”
These were the details that a homeowner should know when inspecting the roof hail damage. To get your house roof protected from the hail damage, contact Corey and Corey. The skilled roofing contractors will analyze the roof issues and will fix them to make the roof durable.
For free estimates or any query, call us at (508) 775-8240.
