Has a recent hail storm passed over your home and caused damage to your roof? If so, you will need to know how to deal with the damage that was caused. The following steps will ensure that you get your home’s roof in great condition once again.
Assess the Roof for Damage
Your first task after the hail storm passes is to inspect the roof for potential damage. Get out the ladder so you can get a close look at the roof, and then start off by looking around the roof’s ridge. The bottom row of shingles tends to have the most damage and have valleys where hail will funnel into. Thankfully, they are easy to inspect from simply standing on a ladder.
Next, inspect places that could have missing granules. While an old roof will be more likely to be missing granules after years of wear, hail impact will cause them to loosen and fall-off especially if the shingles were already in rough shape. Look for places where the shingles have notable dents, chips, or are completely missing. This is a clear sign that the hail has damaged your roof.
In addition, inspect all metal flashing around your chimney and the ventilation pipes sticking out from your roof. It’s possible that these protective aspects of the roof have peeled away from the structure or are now dented due to hail impact.
Talk to Your Home Insurance Provider
With a general idea of what type of damage you’re dealing with, contact your home insurance provider and talk about making an insurance claim. Depending on how much damage was caused, it could be worth using your homeowner’s insurance to pay for the damage.
Your home insurance provider will send someone to your home to assess how much damage was caused. They’ll also take pictures of the damage for their records and tell you what will be covered by your homeowner’s policy. Your insurance provider may recommend a course of action based on what they see, such as moving forward with roof replacement or repair.
It’s possible that the damage isn’t enough to justify a claim, and you’ll be better off hiring a roofer on your own to make repairs. Consider this if your roof only has physical-damage with no water damage inside the home.
Get a Roof Repair Estimate
Reach out to a local roofing company, such as Seagate Roofing and Foundation Services, to get a quote on repairing the hail damage. This will provide a better idea of how to handle the repairs. You may discover that the damage is around the same amount as your home insurance deductible, which means there will be no major financial benefit to filing a home insurance claim to pay for the repairs.
Stay Away From DIY Repair
You may be tempted to repair the roof on your own. At a minimum, expect that you will need to replace a fair amount of shingles that have missing granules, cracks, and dents. If you do not have extra shingles on hand, it will be a challenge to find matching shingles that blend in with the rest of your roof. If this is your first time doing roof repair, you’ll also need to invest in the right equipment to get the job done.
You’ll also need to replace flashing that has been damaged beyond repair or use roofing cement to reattach flashing back to the structures sticking out of your roof. If you don’t feel like you can handle this type of repair on your own, know that you can always have a professional roofer handle it for you like the professionals at Seagate Roofing and Foundation Services.