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What Do You Really Know About Hail and Its Damage?
What Do You REALLY Know About Hail and the Damage It Causes?
It’s formed in a cloud yet comes crashing to earth at the speed of a fastball. The largest one reported in the U.S. is seven inches, but generally it is less than two inches in size. It’s made of layers of ice, but causes millions of dollars in property damage every year.
We all know that hail can cause extensive damage to roofs, siding, cars and more. However, when our engineers evaluate possible hail damage they often find the hail damage is really a construction defect, product defect, long-term deterioration or even “man-made” hail from hammers or other blunt instruments. So how can you make sure the suspected hail damage you’re looking at is real?
The first thing you need to know is what constitutes hail damage. This may seem like a simple question, but it can actually be quite controversial. The definition our engineers use is that the hail must have caused “functional damage,” which means that the water shedding capability or the service life of the shingles has been reduced. If at least one of these things did not happen, even if you see signs of hail in the yard and marks on the roof, it is not classified as hail damage – period.
This can become controversial when a contractor or property owner believes that a large amount of granule loss is due to hail damage. And, while some contractors and even shingle manufacturers argue that granule loss reduces the service life of the shingle, there has been no scientific study to back up this statement. Hail can cause localized granule displacement at the point of impact on the roof, but it will not cause widespread granule loss.
If granule loss does not cause “functional damage,” what does? In order to affect how the shingle will shed water or the service life of the shingle there must be a fracture, tear or bruise in the actual shingle mat at the site of the hail impact. You may need to lift up the shingle where there is possible hail damage to evaluate the shingle mat. Determining if the defect is hail damage or not can be difficult, however, there are some simple questions to consider:
· Was there hail? It sounds simple, but you wouldn’t believe the number of hail damage calls we receive only to discover that there was no documented hail event near the loss location in the days, weeks or even months around the reported date of loss!
· Is there only damage to the roof? Obviously hail doesn’t just hit a roof, so the damage shouldn’t just be on the roof. If it was actually hail damage there should also be evidence of hail impacts (or markers) on other items around the house….the air conditioning unit, electrical service box, dog house, etc.
· Did the “hail” come from all four directions? Hail storms generally are directional. So, unless you’re looking at a flat roof, if there are signs of hail damage on the north, south, east and west sides of the roof it may not be from hail and is likely not from a single hail event.
· Are the granules crushed or pushed into the shingle mat? Hail is made of ice and the granules on shingles are ceramic coated aggregate. This means that it is impossible for real hail to crush the granules. When this has happened it means that an object harder than ceramic (i.e. a hammer or other blunt instrument) actually caused the damage.
· Is the damage random? Hail does not fall in a uniform pattern so you should not see a pattern in hail damaged areas. At times this is difficult to determine until you’re actually on the roof or until you chart where the damage is found. When there is a pattern this is normally a telltale sign of human or malicious activity causing damage that appears as hail.
· Does the damage match the size of hail? Maybe there was hail, but was that really what damaged the entire roof? An older roof in poor condition may show signs of hail damage that a well-maintained roof would easily withstand. In general, hail needs to be at least 1 inch in size before it will damage asphalt shingles.
If you still have questions on hail claims our engineers and roofing experts will be happy to discuss the specifics of your situation with you and, if necessary, perform an inspection of the roof. Their detailed knowledge, training and research on the effects of hail will help find the answers you need.
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