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How to Tell If Your Roof Took Storm Damage, Without Climbing Up There

August 18, 2026 Villco Roofing & Construction
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The dangerous roof damage on the Gulf Coast is rarely the kind that puts a hole in your ceiling the same night. It's the lifted tab that lets water under the course above it, or the hail bruise that knocked the granules loose and started a slow clock on the mat underneath. Both can sit quietly for a year before they announce themselves.

Start on the ground and walk the perimeter. Granules piled at the bottom of a downspout are the single most common sign of hail. So are dents in soft metal: check the gutters, the drip edge, the vent caps and any aluminum window trim. Metal bruises where shingle only loses granules, so the gutters tell you what the roof isn't saying yet.

Then look up from a distance, ideally with a phone camera zoomed in. Shingles that lie flat in a uniform grid are fine. Shingles that show a shadow line along their bottom edge have lifted, which means the sealant strip let go in the wind and the course is no longer bonded. Missing shingles are obvious; lifted ones are the ones people miss.

Finally, go into the attic on a bright day with the lights off. Pinpoints of daylight around a vent or a nail are worth a call. So are dark staining on the decking, damp insulation, or a rusted nail shank, which usually means condensation from bad ventilation rather than a leak, and is its own problem worth fixing.

If you find any of that, get an inspection before you file anything. A written scope with photographs is far more useful to your insurance carrier than a phone call describing what you think you saw, and most Texas policies have a deadline measured from the date of the storm rather than the date you noticed.