(214) 807-0414Request an assessmentSeasonal calendar
A roof does not age at a steady rate here. It takes hail in spring, ultraviolet load and surface heat all summer, a load of wet leaves in autumn, and once every few years a freeze hard enough to move things that have not moved in a decade. Each of those does something different to the same roof, and each has a window where looking costs nothing.
In short
Hail season runs roughly March through June. The look that matters happens in the days after a storm, from the ground, with a date on the photographs. Wait until the next storm arrives and you have lost the ability to say which one did what.
01
A hard freeze happens here often enough to matter and rarely enough that nobody is ready for it. The roof-side risks are a blocked gutter freezing solid and pulling away from the fascia, water backing up at the eave with nowhere to go, and plumbing in an unconditioned attic. All the useful preparation is drainage, and it has to be done before the forecast, not during it.
02
The workable routine for this climate is simpler than it sounds. One look once hail season closes, one before winter, and one after any storm loud enough to wake you. What makes it worth anything is that the photographs are dated and taken from the same standing positions each time, so change is something you can see rather than something you try to remember.
03
A covering in its first decade tolerates a missed season. One well past fifteen years does not, because the failure mode shifts from a single displaced shingle to sealant, boots and flashing giving out at several points within a short period. The older the roof, the more the calendar moves from annual toward after every significant weather event.
Questions
Early summer, once the main hail window has closed, tells you the most about the year just past. Early autumn is the better time to deal with drainage, because it is before the leaves finish falling. Any storm that was loud enough to wake you overrides both.
The looking is identical; what you are looking for is not. On a young roof you are confirming that details were built correctly and that no other trade has disturbed anything. On an old one you are tracking the rate of decline so a replacement is planned rather than triggered.
It is decided by what overhangs the house rather than by the calendar. A roof with nothing above it may be fine once a year; a roof under oaks or pines can fill twice in one autumn, and the second clearance is the one that matters because it comes after the leaves have finished falling. The reliable test is to look during heavy rain. Water coming over the front edge of a gutter, or nothing at all leaving a downspout, means it is due whenever it was last done.
On the roof, almost nothing, and nobody should be up there ahead of a storm. What is worth doing is off it: move vehicles under cover, bring in anything that becomes a projectile, and make sure your photographic record is actually current. A set of dated images taken the week before a storm is worth far more than the same set taken the week after, and it takes a few minutes from the ground.
The value is in the series rather than in any single visit. One look at a roof in good condition tells you very little you had not already assumed. The same look repeated from the same standing positions, dated, across several years is what makes change visible — a slope losing granule faster than the others, a boot beginning to open, a flashing that has moved. Nobody can see a rate of change in one photograph.
Assessment request
Short, routing-only questions. Nothing here asks you to diagnose the roof yourself.