Storm Damage Inspection and Documentation
Purpose
The product of a storm inspection is an evidence record that holds up when it is read by someone who was not there: an adjuster next week, the customer eighteen months from now, a lawyer after that. Every observation has to carry where it was, how big it was, and when it was seen, or it is a memory rather than a record.
This procedure also fixes the two ways storm inspections cost shops money. The first is a slope that gets a hit count nobody can defend because the inspector never checked whether the soft metals agree with it. The second is a tech who tells a homeowner the claim will be approved, which the tech does not decide and in most states is not the tech's role to negotiate.
Scope
Covers post-storm inspection of residential and light commercial steep-slope roofs for hail and wind damage, the evidence record, and the customer conversation. Covers the discrimination between impact damage and the things that look like it.
Does not cover the emergency tarp or leak-stop visit, which is a different call with a different deliverable and runs first when water is active. Does not cover the repair estimate or the scope of loss. Does not cover low-slope membrane forensics, which needs core cuts, or structural assessment after a limb strike.
Roles and responsibilities
| Role | Owns | Hands off |
|---|---|---|
| Inspector | Slope map, test squares, photographs, the not-walked call | Reports any slope not walked, with the reason and the method used instead, before leaving the site |
| Office | Date of loss, weather record pull, report assembly | Sends the weather record to the inspector before the visit, not after |
| Estimator | Reading the record into a scope | Returns any slope with a missing count or an undated photo to the inspector rather than filling it in |
| Owner or manager | The coverage line the shop holds | Trains and enforces the language in step 8; this is not left to each tech |
What counts as evidence, and what only looks like it
| Cue | Hail impact | Blister | Foot traffic or mechanical | Manufacturing granule loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feel | Soft, gives under the thumb, mat fractured | Firm and raised, mat intact | Abraded granules, mat usually intact | No depression at all |
| Pattern | Random across the slope | Random, often heavier on hot slopes | Linear, along walk paths and around penetrations | Uniform, often following course lines |
| Substrate | Fresh dark bruise, sharp edge | Oxidized rim, no fracture | Dirt embedded in the scuff | Matches the roof's age |
| Soft metals | Matching dents with a directional bias | None | None | None |
Two of those four columns are not damage claims at all. Blistering and normal granule loss are questions for the shingle manufacturer's technical bulletins and its warranty, not for a storm claim, so calling either one hail is how a shop loses credibility with an adjuster it will meet again next month.
The soft metals are the spine of the whole inspection. Hail arrives on a wind bearing, so it strikes the slopes and the soft metals facing that bearing. Gutter aprons, downspouts, vent caps, mailboxes, grill lids and the condenser fins record that bearing in a way shingles do not, and they cannot be produced by anyone walking the roof. If a slope shows a high count but the same-facing soft metals are clean, the count is wrong or the damage is not hail, and it gets re-examined before it goes in the report.
Procedure
1. Set the ground rules with the customer before anyone goes up. Tell them what this visit is: a documented inspection of condition. Tell them what it is not: a coverage decision or a promise of a claim outcome. Acceptance: the customer has heard both sentences and the ticket records that. Wrong looks like a conversation that starts with what the insurance will pay. Stop rule: a customer who wants a coverage opinion is routed to their carrier, and the shop's owner decides what more the shop says. Hazard, commercial: most states regulate who may adjust or negotiate a claim and how a deductible may be handled, and the rules differ by state and by license, so ask your own attorney what your license permits you to say before you standardize any script.
2. Pull the date of loss and the weather record before the visit. Get the storm date the customer believes, then pull the reported hail and wind for that address and date from a weather-data source the office uses consistently. Acceptance: a date, a reported hail size or wind speed if any, and a wind bearing, all in hand before the inspector arrives. Wrong looks like an inspection with no date, which makes every photograph undatable to an event. Stop rule: no storm record for that address and date means the inspection still happens but the report says so plainly rather than implying an event. Hazard: an assumed date is the single easiest thing for an adjuster to disprove, and it discredits the honest observations alongside it.
3. Number the slopes and build the map before the first photograph. Sketch the roof from the ground, number every slope, and mark orientation, pitch and access route on the sketch. Acceptance: every plane on the building has a number, including dormers, porches and a detached garage. Wrong looks like "north side" in the notes, which becomes ambiguous the moment a house has two north-facing planes. Stop rule: a plane you cannot see from any ground position gets a number anyway and is flagged for a different method. Hazard: this is the last work done on the ground, so also mark the service drop, the fence dog, and the soft ground under the ladder while you are still looking at them.
4. Inspect the soft metals and ground-level collateral first, before you go up. Walk the perimeter and record dents on gutter aprons, downspouts, fascia, siding, window wraps, the condenser fins, and anything else soft, noting which face of each object is struck. Acceptance: a per-elevation dent count and the bearing they imply, recorded before any roof observation exists to anchor to. Wrong looks like checking the metals afterward to confirm what you already decided. Stop rule: soft metals clean on every elevation and the inspector proceeds but the report leads with that finding. Hazard: order matters here for a reason that is not safety - inspecting the roof first biases the metals reading, and a biased reading is what collapses under an adjuster's questions.
5. Run a test square on each slope you can walk, and refuse the ones you cannot. Chalk a 10 ft by 10 ft square in a representative area, count impacts inside it, and record the count per numbered slope along with the square's location. Acceptance: a chalked square photographed with its count, on every walkable slope. Wrong looks like a count with no square in the photograph, which cannot be verified by anyone. Stop rule: a slope too steep, too brittle or too wet to walk is documented as not walked, with the alternative method named and the count recorded as not established - never estimated. Hazard: brittle or heat-softened shingles are damaged by walking them, so on a hot afternoon or a cold brittle morning the inspector works the slope early or late, and steep-slope access runs under the fall protection setup SOP without exception.
6. Photograph to one fixed protocol every time. For each slope: a wide shot showing the slope and its number card, the chalked square with the count visible, and a close shot of two or three individual hits with a coin, a chalk circle or a tape in frame for scale. Acceptance: every photograph carries a date stamp, a scale reference and an identifiable slope. Wrong looks like a folder of close-ups nobody can locate on the building. Stop rule: a photograph without scale or slope identity is retaken while the inspector is still on that slope, not annotated later from memory. Hazard: shooting one-handed on a slope is how phones and people go off roofs, so photographs are taken from a stable stance inside the marked travel arc.
7. Inspect the interior and the attic for corroboration. Look for ceiling stains, wet insulation, daylight through the deck, and fresh water tracks along rafters, locating each finding against the numbered slope above it. Acceptance: every interior finding tied to a slope number and photographed. Wrong looks like an interior note with no slope reference. Stop rule: any live electrical involvement and inspection of that room stops until the circuit is off and confirmed dead by someone qualified to do it. Hazard: attic work carries more heat than people expect, joist-only footing, and insulation you may not be able to identify - do not disturb a loose granular fill you cannot name, and wear respiratory protection matched to what is up there rather than a nuisance dust mask.
8. Deliver the record and hold the coverage line. Assemble the report with the slope map, per-slope counts, the soft-metal findings and the weather record, and hand it over with the same two sentences from step 1. Acceptance: the customer has the full record and no statement about coverage. Wrong looks like "you'll definitely get a new roof". Stop rule: pressure to characterize the claim is answered with the record and a referral to the carrier. Hazard, commercial again: leave the report intact even where it hurts the sale - a slope with three hits stays at three, because a report that only contains the good slopes is the one that gets challenged as a whole.
The record this produces
One storm inspection file per address: the slope map with numbered planes, pitch and orientation; date of loss and the weather record pulled; per-elevation soft-metal counts with struck faces; per-slope test-square counts with the square location, or a not-established entry with the method used; the photograph set to protocol; interior and attic findings tied to slope numbers; and the customer conversation with its date.
The estimator reads it to build a scope. The adjuster reads it, usually with the inspector standing there. The office reads it a year later when the customer asks why one slope was replaced and another was not, and the answer has to be a number.
Worked pass: four-plane hip, storm bearing from the southwest
Weather record shows hail on the date the customer gave, with a wind bearing from the southwest. Slopes numbered 1 west, 2 south, 3 north, 4 east.
Step 4 first, from the ground: west gutter apron shows 6 dents on its west face, the south downspout is dented, the condenser fins are flattened on the south and west faces, and the north gutter apron is clean. That is a consistent southwest bearing before anyone is on the roof.
Step 5 results: slope 1 west, 11 hits in the square. Slope 2 south, 9 hits. Slope 3 north, 3 hits. All three squares chalked and photographed with their counts.
Step 5 fails on slope 4. The east plane is a 12:12 with brittle, heat-cycled shingles and no safe stance. The stop rule fires: no walk, no estimate. It is recorded as not walked, method drone at roughly 25 ft, visible impacts present but hit count not established, and that exact wording goes in the report rather than a number.
The direction check closes the file. Slope 3 north returned 3 hits and the north gutter apron is clean, which agrees - a sheltered plane on a southwest storm should be low, and it is. Had slope 3 come back at 11 with a clean north apron, that count would have gone back for re-examination as probable foot traffic before it went anywhere near a report.
On the threshold: the most commonly referenced convention is 8 or more impacts in a 10 ft by 10 ft square, but the gate is the carrier's and the adjuster's, not yours. Record 11, 9, 3 and not established, and let the person who owns the threshold apply it.
References
- Trade-standard hail inspection practice using a 10 ft by 10 ft test square per slope, the convention the insurance industry works from
- Asphalt shingle manufacturer technical bulletins on distinguishing impact damage from blistering and normal granule loss, which govern warranty questions on the same slopes
- Your state's insurance code on public adjusting, claim negotiation and deductible handling by contractors, which varies by state and by license - confirm with your own attorney
- See related: the emergency tarp and leak-stop visit SOP, and the fall protection setup SOP, which governs every slope walked here