Hail damage to the roof? With the weather gradually warming in Northern Indiana, the irony of ice balls, known as hail, falling from the sky is not lost on Hoosier homeowners. But, the reality is that spring and summer in this part of the country brings with it the constant threat of hail, which is damaging to property such as roofs.
At Professional Roofing Solutions & Construction, LLC., our highly-trained consultants are on red alert during hail season in order to respond to the needs of residents throughout the region and solve hail claims with speed and efficiency.
According to PRS General Manager Richard Reynolds and Sales Manager Taylor Temple, homeowners should call an expert after a hail storm if there is even a possibility of hail damage to the roof.
“They should probably not get on the roof because hail damage is very hard to spot,” said Reynolds. “What they should do is just call an insurance specialist like us and we’ll get up there and check it out.” Reynolds said that residents can get some idea of how destructive the storm was by looking at their gutters. Temple said he and his fellow consultants will start there and on some extra vulnerable spots on the roof. “The best place to start is by looking at the soft metals, such as box vents and vent stacks,” Temple said. From there, these specialists will differentiate between hail damage and other forms of roof imperfections, such as a problem called blistering.
“Blistering and hail can look very similar, so it’s on us to diagnose it as hail, but we have to have a reason to back it up,” Temple continued. “We even have a hard time sometimes, even with as many roofs as we’ve done.”
According to Temple, when hail penetrates the shingle enough to cause permanent damage, it’s a process called bruising. “It will loosen the granules, which will in turn expose the asphalt. And then that asphalt is exposed to direct sunlight for so long, the shingle cracks and becomes compromised.”
This type of subtle damage is why PRS specialists urge homeowners to call them if there is a chance that a storm has caused hail damage to the roof.