Five signs your roof took hail

Why it is easy to miss — Hail rarely punches a hole you can see from the ground. It bruises the shingle, knocking granules off the mat and leaving the asphalt underneath exposed to the sun. The roof looks acceptable for a season or two. Then it starts leaking the winter after everyone has forgotten the storm, and by then the claim window is a conversation.

One: granules at the splash blocks — After a storm, look at your downspout outlets and splash blocks. A drift of black or gray grit like coarse sand is your shingle's armor washing off. Some loss is normal on a brand-new roof as the excess sheds. A fresh pile after hail is not.

Two: dents in the soft metals — Hail big enough to hurt a roof dents everything softer than the roof. Check the gutters, downspouts, the AC condenser fins, window screens, the mailbox, any metal vent hoods. Adjusters look here first and so do we, because soft metals date the event as well as prove it.

Three: dark, random spots on the shingles — From the ground with binoculars, hail bruising reads as dull, dark spots scattered without pattern. Age and foot traffic wear in lines and paths; hail does not. You do not need to climb up to see it, and you should not.

Four: creased or missing tabs — Wind usually arrives with the hail. A shingle with a crease across the middle has already broken its mat and will let water through in the next hard rain even though it is still sitting in place.

Five: a ceiling stain some weeks later — The expensive one, because it means water has been inside for a while. If a stain shows up within a couple of months of a storm, the storm is the most likely cause, and it may well still be claimable.

The first forty-eight hours — Do not sign anything with a door-knocker, and do not sign an assignment of benefits at all. Photograph hail on the ground next to something for scale. If there is an active leak, call and we will get a tarp battened over it, which stops the damage growing while the rest gets sorted. Then get an inspection from a contractor with a local address.

What it costs to find out — Nothing. Our storm inspections are free, the photo report is yours to keep, and if the roof is fine we will tell you that and go home. Plenty of them are.