Spring in Atlanta is known for its spectacular beauty and for its destructive thunderstorms. Thunderstorms usually include very heavy rain, high winds, hail and deadly tornadoes. These weather events can have quite an impact on our homes and on our lives. When trees fall on homes and roofs get blown off houses the damage is quite obvious. With a hail storm more times than not you cannot see the damage until its too late!
Why does a hail storm cause so much damage to a roof system? Before I answer that the more important question is does your roof have hail damage? Aside from a storm-chasing roofer knocking on your door informing you that your roof may have hail damage, how would you know? How do you discern fact from fiction? Ask your self a few questions. The first obvious questions is “did we have a hail storm?” and if so “when was it?”. Insurance companies will usually have a statute of limitations between a storm and you filing an insurance claim. So if you’ve had a storm recently within the last year contact your insurer and find out how much time you have until its too late for filing a claim. All insurers are different so you need to check with your agent when it comes to making your claim. Let’s say you know you had the storm and you know precisely when it was. What next? Like most of the homes in Atlanta, your roof is very steep! and if your like most other people, you’re not going up on it to look. So what do you do? There are 2 things you can do: One, you can call your insurance company or you can call a trusted roofing professional with experience in detecting hail damage to examine your roof.
Now, what does a hail storm do to cause damage on your roof? First of all a hail storm’s damaging effects are not usually immediate. In fact, it may take a long time for the resulting interior damage to show up. Hail storm damage is usually the result of very high winds. An asphalt shingle is made up of multiple layers. One of these layers is the fiberglass mat. When the mat is broken the shingle will fail and leak if left on the roof unchecked. The visual evidence that the shingle has had this type of damage is an indentation or dent on the shingle as if the round end of a ball peen hammer has hit the shingle. A strike that causes this damage will also remove the granules in that spot. Most insurance company’s have a formula for determining whether a roof has sustained enough damage that it should be repaired or replaced. State Farm Insurance, for example, says that a 10′ x 10′ area must have a minimum of 6 hail strikes. Keep in mind that just because your neighbor’s insurance company paid to replace his roof doesn’t mean your insurance company will do the same. Hail storms will impact some houses in a neighborhood and not others. They may also hit only one side of your house. Hail storms typically blow in from a particular direction. If you have a heavy canopy of trees or your house is situated such that the storm does not directly strike the roof you will not have damage.
I hope this helps answer some of the questions regarding hail damage. Also, If you have had a hail storm recently, and want to know more about the condition of your roof, give us a call and we can do a free inspection!
