What you receive
A wind damage roof inspection gives you a written account of your roof after the weather, on a named date. Each elevation is set out on its own: which slopes were walked, which shingles lifted when they were tried, where the creases run, what metal has moved and which way the damage points. Close photographs show each finding and wider ones place it on the roof. At the end there is a repair scope, written item by item so another contractor could price the same work.
The point of doing it early is that wind damage is quiet. Nothing is missing, nothing is dripping, and the roof looks exactly as it did a week ago. The shingles that lost their bond are still lying flat, waiting for the next storm to take them somewhere. A record made now describes a roof in that state. A record made after the next event describes a mess with two causes in it.
What we do, and what we do not
We inspect roofs and we write documents. That is our own work, and the report is evidence you can put in your own file and send to whoever you choose. Nothing we write is legal, financial or insurance advice, and coverage is decided by your policy and your carrier. Where you want somebody acting for you with the insurer, we can introduce you to a partner who is a licensed public adjuster or an attorney in your state, and they work with you directly.
We do not call an old crease a new one, and we do not report a broken seal as wind where the adhesive simply never bonded. Both happen, and both get written as what they are. We do not walk a slope that is unsafe, and an elevation we could not reach is recorded as not reached. We do not carry out repairs, and we do not price what your claim should pay.
When people book one
After a windy night when something turned up in the yard. After a neighbor has had a roofer up. After a tenant has reported a noise. Often after a carrier’s adjuster has recorded the missing shingles and nothing else, and the owner wants the creased and unsealed ones around them written down as well.
The one thing worth avoiding is waiting for a leak. By the time water reaches a ceiling, the roof has usually been through more weather, and the question of which event did what has become much harder for anyone to answer.
Common questions
What does wind damage look like when nothing is missing?
It looks like an intact roof until somebody puts a hand on it. The common finding after a wind event is not a gap but a broken seal.
- Shingles bond on a strip of adhesive that the sun sets
- Wind under a course breaks the bond without taking the shingle anywhere
- It lies back down and looks normal, but lifts freely and will lift again
- A crease is the second: the mat fractures where the shingle folded back
- The third is metal that moved, a lifted drip edge or slid ridge cap
A crease shows as a line across the tab, easiest to see in low sun and often only from directly above. None of that is visible from a driveway, which is why so much wind damage goes unrecorded, and every one of them is a path for water later.
Can you say which storm caused the damage?
Sometimes, and only as far as the roof allows. What an inspection can do is describe the condition of a material and how fresh it appears.
- A fresh crease looks different from one that has weathered and dulled
- A newly broken seal usually leaves clean adhesive on both faces
- Metal that moved recently shows bright scratches or unweathered paint
- Debris that has not washed away tells you something about timing
- How much weight any of it carries is for your policy and carrier
Direction helps too, because damage on the elevations that faced the weather, running the same way as your fence and your neighbor's property, is a consistent story, while damage scattered evenly across every slope usually is not. None of that proves a date, so the report describes what we saw and says how confident we are.
Do you check inside the building as well?
Where you can give us access, yes, and it is usually worth doing. Wind damage that has broken a seal does not always leak on the day, but when it does the evidence inside is often clearer.
- A ceiling stain, a wet rafter, damp insulation or a rusted nail head
- The attic is the most useful room in the house for this
- Daylight at a ridge or rake, stains on the underside of the deck
- Insulation compressed and dark in one patch is a finding too
Where a ceiling is finished and nothing shows without opening it, we photograph what is visible and say plainly that we opened nothing. We do not cut, lift or remove material to look underneath. If tracing a leak properly needs the building opened, that is separate work and we will tell you what it would involve.
Is the flashing and the edge metal part of a wind inspection?
It is the part that matters most on many roofs. Wind does not usually start in the middle of a slope, it gets under an edge or a piece of metal that was already slightly proud.
- Drip edge, gable rakes, valley metal, chimney flashing and counterflashing
- Vent hoods, ridge caps and the gutter line, examined along their length
- We record metal that moved: a lifted lap, a gap, a pulled fastener
- And metal somebody has already bent back
A neighbor or a handyman flattening a lifted edge is a normal, well meaning thing to do, and it removes the evidence of what the wind did. If anyone has straightened anything since the weather, tell us and send any photograph taken before they did. We will record it as something we were told rather than something we saw.
Will you deal with my insurer about the wind damage?
Not ourselves, but there is more to the answer than a flat no. We inspect roofs and write documents, and what you get from us is a report that is yours to use.
- Put it in your own file, send it yourself or give it to a contractor
- If you would rather somebody dealt with the insurer, tell us
- The partner is a licensed public adjuster or an attorney in your state
- That partner works with you directly on the claim
Nothing we write is legal, financial or insurance advice, and your policy and your carrier decide coverage. Whether wind is covered, what deductible applies and what you must do to keep cover are set in your policy, and the dates that bind you are in it and in your carrier's letter. Ask in writing if a term is unclear.