Hi everybody! This is Tracy Bookman owner of Homestead Roofing and welcome to today's
weekly walk in the park where we take three minutes to answer your questions
about roof repairs, roof replacements, and the insurance claim process. Today especially
in light of all the events that happened in Colorado Springs with the hail storms
of May last month we're going to answer your question: what does hail damage look
like?
There's a couple reasons why that's actually an important question. One
reason is because one of the tactics that the door-to-door guys like to use
or the phone solicitors that probably have been blowing up your phone since
the hailstorm is they like to say you know we were just driving by and as we
were going by your house we noticed that you've got hail damage on your roof and
so we wanted to offer you a free inspection. For the most part unless the
storm that we've gotten is just like huge you can't see hail damage from the
street I actually even had a phone solicitor call my house after I don't
know I think it was like a 2015 storm and tell me that they could see from the
street hail damage on my roof now I live 300 my house is 300 feet away from the
road so I know they're just it's just totally bogus. So reason number two why
this is an important question is because homeowners all a lot of times will get
concerned about the fact that they see a lot of granules at the bottom of their
downspouts after a hail storm wondering does that indicate that I've got hail
damage. Here's some kind of hopefully helpful tips on self-identifying hail
damage. Right after a storm the hail damage is going to look pretty fresh and
so it's gonna be you know depending on the size of the hail could be anywhere
from dime sized let's see how to do this backwards up to quarter size maybe
tennis ball-sized like we had in 2016 but it's gonna be a very obvious
circular mark maybe an oval mark. It's gonna be black if it's fresh and so here
we'll show you a photo right here okay so that's some fresh hail damage a lot
of times it's like splatter shaped. Older hail damaged maybe you know something
that occurred from a storm a couple years ago it's going to be grey not
black and if it's even older you're gonna be able to see the fibers
in the fiberglass matting on the shingle. So what is happening is that hail stone
hits your roof and it softens the mat because of the impact and because of
that the granules that are in that spot either get knocked out or they washed
out in the rain that usually comes with hail storms.
Don't confuse hail damage with blistering so here's a photo of
blistering. Blistering is not caused by storm damage it's usually a thermal
problem so too much of a heat buildup in the shingles and so we actually get
those kind of calls not infrequently where houses for sale home inspectors
got up and found blisters on a roof and says to the homeowner hey you know
there's hail damage you better file a claim. Claim gets filed the insurance
adjuster comes out says no it's not hail damaged it's just blistering so they
denied a claim because there's no storm damage. You know if we've got a real hit
damaging hail storm that's beat up your siding like this one right here all
right. So if it's beat up your siding beat up your screens, chances are real
good that you've got hail damage on your roof. It may possibly be visible from the
street depending on if it was really big or not but by and large you can't see
hail damage from the street. Granule loss may indicate hail damage but it may not
so don't look at the granules that have come out of the downspout
and think that you got hail damage on your roof and calling a claim. Like I
said hopefully this helps answer your questions if you've got more questions
or if you would like somebody to inspect your roof let you know if you have hail
damage let you know whether you should file a claim or not please give us a
call at our office phone number right here 719.433.6991
you can also visit our website where we've got a ton of
information other helpful videos lots of education for homeowners website address
right down here HomesteadRoofingColorado.com and otherwise my name is
Tracy Bookman owner of Homestead Roofing and we will see you next week on our
weekly walk in the park.