Hail is the most misunderstood thing that happens to a roof in North Georgia. It rarely puts a hole in anything. It bruises, and bruises do not leak until later.
What hail actually does to a shingle
An asphalt shingle is a fiberglass mat coated in asphalt and covered in ceramic granules. The granules are the sunscreen. When a hailstone hits hard enough, it knocks granules loose and fractures the mat underneath, leaving a soft dark spot that looks like a bruise. The shingle is still lying flat. Nothing is dripping. Your ceiling looks fine.
Then that exposed asphalt sits in Georgia summer sun with no granules protecting it. It dries, it cracks, and eighteen to thirty months later you have a leak that seems to come out of nowhere. By then the claim window on the storm that caused it has usually closed.
Signs you can check from the ground
- Granules collecting at the bottom of your downspouts or washed into the driveway
- Dents in gutters, gutter caps or the metal edge of the roof
- Dings on window wraps, garage doors, mailboxes or the fins of your air conditioner
- Splatter marks on a wood deck or a painted fence, which show the storm was hard enough
- Neighbors on your street already getting roofs replaced
That last one matters more than people expect. Hail falls in swaths. If three houses on your street are getting new roofs, your roof was in the same swath.
What you cannot see from the ground
The bruising itself. That is the entire problem. From the driveway a hail damaged roof and a healthy roof look identical, and most homeowners never get any closer than that. It is the reason we fly every property instead of squinting up from the yard. From twenty feet above a slope, the bruise pattern is obvious.
What to do if you think you were hit
- Do not wait for a leak. The leak is the late stage, not the early sign.
- Write down the date of the storm. Your carrier will ask for a date of loss.
- Get the roof documented while the evidence is fresh and the date is clean. Later storms muddy which event caused what.
- Get an honest read on whether it is worth filing. A denied claim is not free.
A word about the trucks that show up
After a storm, crews from out of state canvass neighborhoods hard. Some are fine. Some will offer to cover your deductible, which is not a discount, it is insurance fraud, and it is your name on the claim. Some will be three states away when your roof needs a warranty call. Ask where the company is based and how long it has been there.
Written by the crew at GSP Exterior Works, a roofing, gutter and exterior contractor working across Forsyth, Cherokee, North Fulton, Gwinnett, Hall, Dawson and Paulding counties. Every roof we quote gets a free drone inspection first.