Storms, Hurricane or Hail Damage to Roof – Steps to Replacing Old Roof or Repairing Damaged Roof

Natural Calamities And Disasters:

Every year hurricanes, strong winds, rains, storms, tornadoes, dust storms, blizzards and hail buffet our roofs causing untold damage to our property. It’s the nightmare that we all wish to avoid but can’t really do much if you are in path of hurricane, tornado or blizzard.

The wind speeds in a hail storm can be as high as 120 miles per hour, in a hurricane it can reach speeds over 150 miles per hour. Blizzards and tornadoes can be similarly devastating. While some of the damage is obvious, most of isn’t as apparent. If not assessed, you would never know the damaged sustained by your roof and can be unpleasantly surprised several months later. If the damaged roof isn’t fixed soon after the damage is sustained, it can worsen over time causing irreparable damage to various aspects of your roof and can be potentially damaging to the contents of your home.

Roof Inspection:

A complete and thorough inspection of the roof is very important and has to be as soon as possible after the damage is sustained. The first step obviously is to make a call to the company that laid your roof. You can also contact other trusted roofing companies in your area if for some reason your previous roofing contractor isn’t available. The roofing company will assess the damage to your roof. The assessment of roof damage is done on a randomly selected 100 square foot area of the roof. The cross-section of the roof is inspected to check the full extent of damage.

They will inspect the roof, gutters, sidings, chimneys, skylights and other roofing features. Most roofing contractors will do this assessment for free and present a quote with what needs to be done to restore and repair your roof. If your roof has suffered hail impact, then these are counted, circled and numbered. This will give an idea about the damage sustained by your entire roof. The gutters, gutter screens and other roofing aspects are checked for dents, cracks and holes. Once all aspects are inspected it is time to present you will a complete report about the state of your home. Most roofing contractors will explain the damaged sustained by the roof and how to fix it. They will give you the recommendations and give you a quote about the costs involved.

Assessing Roof Damage And Filing For Insurance Claims:

Experienced roofing contractors have spent a life-time assessing roof damage and filing for insurance claims. If they are offering that service take their help in filing your insurance claim. An insurance adjuster will fix up a time with your roofing contractor/yourself and will make joint inspection to ensure that the claims about the damages sustained are all in order. After all the parties have reached an agreement about the extent of the storm damage, cost for roof repair/roof replacement will be estimated and numbers arrived at.

Usually, within a couple of weeks you will receive information about the agreement reached between you and the insurance company and a check towards the first payment for your roof replacement. If you will pay a certain part of the roof replacement cost which is the deductible from the total cost. In most cases you will not receive the entire amount of cost of repairs as age of the roof, its condition before replacement; depreciation will be taken into consideration.

Warranty For Installation:

Your final check will be sent in after the roofing company finishes the work and sends in the work completion report. Before that you will need to finalize your roofing material choice, the color and design choice with your roofing contractor. Get all the permits and clearances required to replace and repair your roof. Make sure that the contractor does not damage your existing landscaping and other elements of your home. Damage to decking has to be fixed before new roof goes on it.

Ensure that the roofing contractor follows all the warranty specification and NCRA prescribed standards for your roof repair or replacement. Make sure that they properly dispose of old roofing materials and other debris accumulated during roof installation. A quality controller from the roofing company will make an inspection of the roof and issue a standard 10 year warranty for their roofing installation. They will also make sure that you are satisfied with the work done. A final check from the insurance company will be sent once the work is completed.