Hail Damage Roof Repair in Southfield, MI

A hail bruise is a soft spot where the stone hit hard enough to crush the asphalt or crack the mat underneath. From a distance it's a dark dot. Under a gloved thumb it feels spongy, like a bruise on an apple. The mat crack is the real damage: it lets water in over the next few seasons, long after the storm. Hits are random. They don't line up the way blistering or foot traffic does. The roofer circles each one in chalk so it shows in photos.

Granules are the colored stone chips that shield the asphalt from the sun. Hail knocks them loose in patches, and the first place you'll see them is at the bottom of a downspout or in the gutter. Some granule shedding is normal on a new roof and on an old one near the end of its life. What points to hail is fresh, bare spots on the shingle surface that match the size of the hail that fell, and appeared right after a storm.

Soft metals show hail better than shingles do. Aluminum box vents, ridge vent caps, gutters, downspouts, flashing and even the fins of an air conditioner dent at each hit. A roofer measures the dents to estimate stone size and checks the shingles next to them. Dents on a standing seam or ribbed metal roof are usually cosmetic unless a seam opened or the paint cracked. Ask the adjuster how your policy treats cosmetic dents on metal, because policies differ.

Older acrylic bubble skylights and the plastic domes of tubular skylights crack or craze under hail. A cracked dome leaks with the next rain, so it's often the first thing to cover with a tarp. Replacing a skylight usually means new flashing around the curb too; see skylight installation and repair.

The 10-by-10-foot test square has long been the standard way to measure hail damage. The roofer chalks a 100-square-foot box on each slope, counts the hits inside and photographs the square. Adjusters use that count when they weigh repairing a slope against replacing it. A test square is a sample, not a measure of the whole roof, and where it's placed changes the count. Ask for one on every slope, including the ones that faced away from the storm.

If the roof is being replaced after hail, it's a good time to ask about Class 4 shingles, the top rating in the UL 2218 impact test. GAF notes that some insurers may offer premium discounts for Class 4 shingles, so ask your own insurer for numbers before you choose. The rating is a lab test, and GAF says it gives no warranty on how its Class 4 shingle performs against hail. The shingle roofing page compares the ratings.