The most effective way to minimize hail damage is to choose durable hail resistant roofing materials.
Hail roof wood shingles.
Alternatively softball sized hailstones can be dense enough and strong enough to puncture a roof.
Additionally the age and condition of a roof could affect the degree of damage.
You will also note a bright unoxidized color running along the split or in the case of a puncture an unweathered layer of wood that is underneath the top layer.
Shingles can be tricky when it comes to spotting hail damage but they re not the only type of roof out there.
However if wood shakes are severely cracked the felt water barrier underneath the shingle becomes compromised and eventually allows water to seep through the roof and into the structure.
If you have wood shingles or wood or cedar shakes you should also be looking for random damage with no particular rhyme or reason splits in the shingles that are brown or orange in hue and have sharp colors or edges with little to no deterioration.
Wood shingles frequently split right down the middle after being struck by serious hailstones.
Hail damaged wood shingles may be completely split or cracked or have indentations that affect the long term integrity of the shingle.
Here are the top hail resistant roofing options available for modern homes.
You will see a clear impact mark following a hailstorm.
Hailstorms can cause catastrophic damage to roofs especially when they are made from materials that aren t designed to hold up to high impact debris.
A wooden shingle is hail damaged if there is a split or puncture in the wood that is clearly the result of a hailstone impact.
You have others like wooden shake clay slate and metal roofing.
Shingles labeled as impact resistant were purchased and put through a series of in lab tests that simulated the effects of hail impacts.
Dents on aluminum roofing is common and wood and vinyl shingles frequently crack after a hail storm.
Clay and slate roofing tiles tend to suffer cracks and or gouges with large hailstones and metal roofing will suffer dents.
Wood shingles are highly resilient to hail damage and even with a few cracks and splits the function and performance of the shake roof is maintained.
For example hail can cause dings in aluminum siding gutters or asphalt shingles whereas it can crack vinyl siding or wood shakes.
Hail damage to wood shingles.
Punctures to soft roofing materials look for punctures or cracks in soft roofing materials like pvc or weathered roof patch compounds.