(214) 807-0414Request an assessmentImpact damage
A tree on a roof looks like a roofing problem and often is not only that. The covering is the visible part. The question underneath is whether the frame has taken a load it was never built to carry. Getting the order right — safety, then weight off, then structure, then covering — is what keeps a bad afternoon from turning into a bad year.
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What this covers
A fallen tree is under tension in ways that are not visible, and it can move when something shifts. Anything touching or near a power line is for the utility. If people are at risk, that is a call to emergency services first.
A ceiling that is sagging, cracking or holding water is carrying load from above. Keep people out of the rooms underneath the impact and out of the attic below it. That is a structural symptom, and it is read from the doorway rather than from beneath it.
A limb can be bridging an opening, holding weight off a broken rafter, or resting against something that is now the only thing holding. Removal is rigging work with a sequence, and pulling on the wrong end of it enlarges the hole and the bill together.
What to know
Punctured covering, torn underlayment and broken sheathing are roofing work. A fractured rafter or truss, a member displaced at a bearing point, a ridge line no longer straight, or doors that stopped closing after the impact point somewhere else entirely, and no amount of new shingle addresses it.
We report what we can see and where it points. A structural engineer determines the condition of the frame and specifies the repair, and engineered trusses in particular are not something a contractor may modify or sister on judgement. Where that is the question, that is the person to bring in, and we will say so plainly.
A tree service takes the weight off. The deck and frame are then examined with the load gone, which is the only condition in which they can be read honestly. Temporary protection follows if the building is open. The permanent scope is written last, once the extent is actually known.
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
Generally yes, and a tree service does that part. Removal can enlarge the opening on the way out, so the roof is photographed before the lift as well as after. Both sets of images matter, and only one of them can be taken later.
We can describe what is visible from the roof and from the attic, and we can tell you when what we are seeing calls for an engineer. Determining structural condition and specifying its repair is that engineer’s work, not ours.
Often, yes. Impact can fracture the shingle mat or crack sheathing without opening a hole, and dragging contact strips granule along a line. Neither shows as a leak on the day, and both are visible to someone looking for them.
Not the sequence and not the record. The weight comes off, the frame is examined with the load gone, the building is protected if it is open, and the permanent scope is written last. Who is responsible for the cost is a matter between the parties and their insurers, and it is not something a roofing contractor advises on. What helps in either direction is a dated set of photographs taken before the limb is lifted, because that set cannot be produced afterwards.
Assessment request
Short, routing-only questions. Nothing here asks you to diagnose the roof yourself.