When your home goes through a hailstorm, your roof can take a real beating. We all know the damage hailstones can do, so it’s wise to check your roof for hail damage if you’ve had a storm where you live. As weather.com mentions in reference to a report from the National Weather Service, there were 5,396 incidents of severe weather involving hailstorms in the United States in 2019. That’s a lot of potential for damage to a home in general and roof shingles specifically.
Your roof is arguably the most important structural part of your home. As is the case with all exterior materials (siding, gutters, windows, etc.), a little damage one day can lead to a lot more down the road if untreated. It can save homeowners a lot of money to catch these things early. So if you’re concerned about a bad storm and think you may need a roof repair, here’s how you. can tell for sure if you have hail damage.
Roof damaged by hail? These 3 steps will help you check.
Step #1: Check the Size of the Hail that Hit Your Roof
When we want to know about hail, we look to Kansas. According to the same National Weather Service report we looked at above, Kansas and Texas lead the states in the hail category by a pretty big margin, with Texas pulling a whopping 872 incidents of severe hail, and Kansas coming in at 538. When you consider that Texas is more than three times the size of Kansas, that puts it into perspective. So going to the geographical experts, we can see in a hailstone size breakdown from Kansas City’s Volta Roofing that if the hail you find after a storm is the size of a dime or larger, your roof has almost certainly sustained damage.
Quick Tip for Midwesterners with Hail Damage: The wide variety of weather-resistant options we offer at GPro Exteriors comes EXCLUSIVELY from the industry’s leading roof shingles manufacturer. To give our customers the best possible result, we take the time to get each of our roofers trained in the installation technique by that manufacturer. We also have licensed insurance adjusters that will go to bat with your insurance company to make sure you’re getting the cost coverage you deserve. So if you end up needing a roof repair or you’re worried about your new roof cost, it may not be half as bad as you think. In many cases, installing new roof shingles ends up costing our customers next to nothing. Hard to beat that! Throw in our lifetime labor and home guarantee on shingle installations, and GPro customers get to rest pretty easy. Even if another hailstorm hits someday. ☃️
Step #2: Check the Roof Shingles in the Areas You Can See
Take a look at this article from the insurance company, Travelers, for some of the ways hail damage shows up on different types of shingles. It’s a helpful resource for assessing what you’re dealing with, pointing out that, “…hail damage to asphalt and composition shingles can look very different than hail damage to wood shingles.” Knowing what you’re looking for will make your job easier. Then you can determine whether a call to your local exterior professionals for a roof repair estimate will be necessary.
If you feel comfortable and can do it safely, a ladder might give you a good enough vantage point to check your roof for hail damage If you don’t enjoy the idea of climbing, you can always try binoculars or if your home is low enough to the ground and you have some powerful peepers, you can try eyeballing it. 👀
While these can be helpful ways to confirm damage, they are not a test to definitively rule it out. You’re likely going to have parts of the roof that you can’t really see without getting someone up there who can test the health of the shingles. That’s where the search to find a contractor usually comes in. Due to the fact, that any reputable contractor will give you a free estimate, it’s really not too big of a deal to get someone out to take a look.
Step #3 Get a Free Drone Inspection for Hail Damage
The only real drawback to a free roofing estimate can be the time it takes out of your day. There’s finding the roofing contractor, making the call, deciding on a time slot, being there when the roofers show up… you know the drill. To be fair, roofing contractors in Columbus, Ohio are MUCH better at showing up on time than cable companies are 😉, but we understand that being stuck at home for any amount of time can be difficult for some customers’ schedules.
In an effort to make things easier (and safer during the current health crisis) for everyone, GPro Exteriors began offering free drone estimates. It’s SO much easier, quicker, and safer than the old way. Customers just text us an address and we send the little guy over. Our pros get HD footage of every square inch of your roof, ensuring that we get you the most accurate estimate possible. We’ll send you a quote on any recommended roofing repairs, or we’ll let you know, “Congrats, no damage here!” within hours.
Were the hailstones that hit your roof bigger than a dime? Can you not quite see all of your roof to tell? Maybe you just aren’t sure what kind of shingles are up there to know what exactly what you’re looking for. The first two steps are great preliminary ways to check your roof for hail damage, but if any exterior companies offer free drone estimates, that’s the most surefire way to know your roof is 100% okay. It’s the easiest thing you’ll do this week, and if you do happen to live in the Columbus or Detroit areas, send us a message. We’ll be happy to send ours your way whenever you’d like.
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