(214) 807-0414Request an assessmentTest squares
The test square is the closest thing residential hail assessment has to a standard method, and most owners have never had it explained. It is a sampling technique with real limits. Understanding those limits is what separates a document you can rely on from a photograph of some chalk.
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What this covers
A marked area of roughly ten feet by ten feet on one slope, its corners chalked, its position on the roof identified, and every impact inside it circled and counted. The area is the point: it makes a count comparable between slopes, between properties and between assessors.
The square stands for the slope around it, which is why where it is placed matters and why one square is never the whole record. A square set in the worst patch on the roof and a square set at random describe different things, and an honest record says which was done.
Hail arrives on a wind, so it is directional. The north, south, east and west planes of the same house routinely produce different counts, and they are recorded and reported separately. A single number for a whole roof has averaged away the only pattern that mattered.
What to know
A hail bruise is granule displacement over a soft spot that gives under a thumb, with a fractured mat underneath. A blister is round, cleanly edged and has no fracture under it. Mechanical marks from foot traffic, a dropped tool or a ladder look different again, as does normal manufacturing variation. That distinction is made by hand and by pattern on the roof, which is why it cannot be made from a photograph sent in.
Each impact circled, the square identified, something in the frame for scale, and one wider photograph showing where on the slope the square actually sits. Close-ups with no scale and no location are the reason two competent people can look at the same roof and produce documents that do not agree. Chalk is used rather than paint because it weathers off.
A documented count describes the surface of the roof on the date it was examined. What it means for a policy is a carrier's determination, and representing a policyholder in that determination is the work of a licensed public adjuster or an attorney. We record the count and hand it to you. We do not tell you what it is worth or what to do with it.
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
There is no universal number and no contractor can give you one honestly. Carriers apply their own criteria and those criteria are not ours to apply on their behalf. What an assessment produces is an accurate count and a description of what was counted.
No. Distinguishing a bruise from a blister requires touching the surface, and a count needs a marked area of known size on a identified slope. Photographs are useful for triage and for deciding whether a visit is warranted.
No, which is exactly why it is used. It weathers off in the first rains. Paint or a marker would not, and finding either on a roof is a reasonable thing to ask about.
No, and nobody should be up there who does not have to be. What you should get instead is the wide photograph showing where each square sits on its slope, alongside the close-ups of what was circled inside it. Those two views together are what let somebody else check the work. A set of close-ups with no wide shot is not a record of a test square; it is a record of some marks.
Assessment request
Short, routing-only questions. Nothing here asks you to diagnose the roof yourself.