(214) 807-0414Request an assessmentSoft metals
Before anyone gets on a roof after a hailstorm, there is a great deal to learn at ground level. Thin metal deforms on impact and keeps the shape, which makes the components around a building a physical record of what hit it, from which direction, and roughly how big it was. None of it is roof damage. All of it narrows the search.
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What this covers
Aluminum and thin steel dent and hold the dent. Gutter faces, downspouts, drip edge, vent hoods, turbine caps, fascia wrap, garage door panels, window screens and the fins of an AC condenser all deform at impact energies that leave an asphalt roof looking untouched from the driveway.
Dents concentrated on one or two elevations give the direction the storm drove from. Their spread and depth give a rough sense of stone size. Both tell an assessor which slopes to examine hardest, and both are things an owner can photograph on the day without going anywhere near a ladder.
A dented gutter is not roof damage and should never be presented as though it were. It is evidence that stones of a certain size struck a certain elevation on a certain date, which is a different and genuinely useful fact — particularly on a roof where the surface evidence is ambiguous.
What to know
An air conditioning condenser sits at ground level with soft aluminum fins facing outward and takes hail at an angle nothing on the building does. It is among the most sensitive indicators on the property and among the most frequently left out of a record. It is also worth noting that flattened fins are a mechanical problem in their own right.
A weathered dent has oxidized, dulled or collected dirt inside it. A fresh one on painted or mill-finish metal often shows bright. That is not a dating method and should not be presented as one, but the distinction is real, worth photographing, and worth stating as an observation rather than a conclusion.
Elevation, component, a count where the marks are countable, an object in frame for scale, and the date. And a plain note wherever a mark's cause cannot be determined from what is visible. Recording uncertainty honestly is what makes the rest of the document worth something. What the record does not do is interpret a policy — that determination belongs to the carrier.
Choose a starting point
A short, non-diagnostic guide for working out what kind of assessment conversation to prepare for.
Decision support
Four situations, and the sensible next move for each. It does not diagnose a roof, decide insurance coverage, or stand in for somebody looking at the property.
Questions
That stones of some size hit that elevation, and that the roof surface needs examining properly rather than from the driveway. Asphalt hides impact far better than aluminum does; a bruise is often invisible until someone puts a hand on it.
It depends whether the dents are cosmetic or functional. Marks across the face are appearance. Deformation to the top edge, to the hangers, or anything that has changed the fall of the run is function, and that is a different conversation from how it looks.
Yes — the connected exterior, because it carries the corroborating evidence. That is documentation of construction condition. It is not an assessment of what any of it is worth, which is not a roofer's role.
Yes, and it is genuinely worth doing. Walk the perimeter and photograph each elevation's gutter face, the downspouts, vent hoods, fascia wrap, garage door panels, window screens and the fins of the air-conditioning condenser, with something in frame for scale and the date on the file. All of it is at ground level. It narrows where an assessment looks, and it is the version of this evidence that gets weaker the longer it waits.
Assessment request
Short, routing-only questions. Nothing here asks you to diagnose the roof yourself.