A line of storms rolls through DuPage County at 4 p.m., you lose a couple of branches, and the neighbor’s gutter is hanging off the fascia. Now you’re wondering whether your roof took a hit — and what actually happens when a roofer shows up to look at it.
Here’s the honest version of a storm damage inspection: what we look at, in what order, why, and what you should have in hand when we’re done.
Before Anyone Climbs a Ladder
A real inspection starts on the ground and in conversation.
We’ll ask when the storm hit. Date matters more than most homeowners expect. Insurance policies in Illinois generally have a window for reporting damage, and carriers pull weather data for your address to confirm whether hail or high winds actually occurred on that date. If you tell us “sometime in June,” we’re guessing. If you say “the night of the derecho” or “that Tuesday afternoon when the sirens went off,” we can line the damage up with a verifiable weather event.
We’ll also ask about the roof itself — how old it is, whether you’ve had work done, whether you’ve had leaks before. A twelve-year-old architectural shingle roof and a twenty-six-year-old three-tab roof respond to hail very differently, and the age changes what your insurance company will pay.
The Ground-Level Walk
Before touching the roof, we walk the perimeter of the house. This part surprises people, but it’s often where the strongest evidence lives.
Soft metals. Hail leaves dents in aluminum and thin steel long before it does obvious damage to asphalt. We check gutters, downspouts, gutter aprons, roof vents, valley metal, the fins on your air conditioning condenser, mailboxes, and metal fascia wrap. If the AC unit’s fins are pushed in on the north side and the downspouts on that same elevation are dimpled, we know hail came from the north and we know roughly how big it was.
Siding and windows. Vinyl siding cracks or chips from hail. Window screens tear. Wood trim gets pockmarked. Chicagoland’s older housing stock — a lot of aluminum and vinyl on postwar homes out in the suburbs — shows this clearly.
Ground debris. Granules washed out at the bottom of the downspouts, shingle pieces in the yard, torn ridge cap in the flowerbed. If your gutters are packed with granules after a storm, the shingle surface took a beating.
Fences, decks, and outbuildings. A splintered fence picket line running one direction tells us wind direction. A hail-spattered deck board tells us stone size.
We photograph all of it. Adjusters want corroborating damage, not just a roof claim.
On the Roof
Now the ladder goes up. On a walkable slope, we’re on the roof. On a steep or fragile roof — old slate, tile, a 12/12 pitch on a Victorian in Elmhurst — we may use a drone or work from the ladder at the eaves.
Here’s what we’re looking for:
Hail bruises. A hail strike on asphalt shingle knocks granules off and leaves a soft, dark spot. Press it and it feels like a bruise on an apple — the mat underneath has been fractured. That’s functional damage. The shingle may not leak today, but the fiberglass mat is broken and the exposed asphalt will dry out and crack. This is different from normal granule loss, blistering, or manufacturing defects, and telling the difference is most of the skill in this job.
Test squares. For a hail claim, we chalk out a 10-foot by 10-foot square on each slope — north, south, east, west — and count the hits inside it. Most carriers use a threshold, often somewhere around eight to ten hits per square, to call a slope damaged. Doing this on each elevation matters because hail is directional. Your west slope can be destroyed while the east slope looks brand new.
Wind damage. Wind damage looks different. We check for missing shingles, obviously, but more often we’re looking for creased shingles — tabs that got lifted, folded back, and set down again. That crease breaks the seal and fractures the mat. We’ll also hand-lift shingles in a few places to test whether the sealant strip is still bonded. Unsealed shingles across a whole slope after a straight-line wind event is real damage, even if nothing is visibly missing.
Chicagoland gets both, sometimes on the same day. Our summer storms come with hail cores and 60-to-80 mph gust fronts, and I’ve inspected plenty of roofs with hail bruises on the west face and wind creasing along the ridge.
Flashing and penetrations. Step flashing at walls and chimneys, counterflashing, pipe boots, furnace and bath vents, skylights, valleys. Rubber pipe boots crack with age and split under hail. Chimney counterflashing gets loosened by wind. These are small parts that cause most leaks.
Ridge and hip caps. Cap shingles sit on the most exposed part of the roof and take the worst of both hail and wind. They’re often the first thing to go.
Gutters and drip edge. We’re checking whether the gutters are still pitched correctly, whether hangers pulled loose, and whether the drip edge is bent or separated.
Roof deck condition. Soft spots underfoot mean the decking below has rot or delamination — usually from an older leak, not the current storm, but it changes what a replacement costs.
In the Attic
A lot of contractors skip this. Don’t let them.
We go into the attic with a flashlight and look at the underside of the decking for water stains, active drips, daylight through nail holes or gaps, and mold or dark streaking. We check whether insulation is compressed or wet. We check that bath fans and dryer vents actually terminate outside instead of dumping into the attic.
We also check ventilation while we’re up there, because it affects everything else. In this climate, an under-ventilated attic gives you ice dams in January and cooks your shingles in July. If your intake soffit vents are packed with insulation and you’ve got one lonely box vent near the ridge, that’s part of why the roof aged the way it did. If we’re replacing the roof anyway, that’s the moment to fix it.
What You Should Get at the End
A storm inspection should end with a documented report, not a verbal “yeah, you’ve got damage, sign here.”
You should walk away with:
- Photos of every area of concern, labeled by slope and location
- A written assessment of what we found and whether it constitutes storm damage versus normal wear
- A straight answer on repair versus replacement
- A recommendation on whether to file a claim — and an honest one
That last point deserves attention. Not every storm inspection ends in a claim. If you’ve got three hits in a test square and a couple of loose cap shingles, that’s a repair, and filing a claim for it can cost you more in the long run than the repair itself. A contractor who tells every homeowner on the block that they need a full replacement is not inspecting; they’re selling.
Likewise, if the roof is 24 years old with curling, cupped shingles and no meaningful hail hits, the honest answer is that you have an old roof, not a damaged one. Insurance covers sudden storm damage, not age.
If You Are Filing a Claim
Once you file, your carrier assigns an adjuster who will do their own inspection. You want your contractor there for that appointment. The adjuster is looking at dozens of roofs that week; your contractor is looking at one. Having someone on the roof with them who can point out the test squares, the creased shingles on the back slope, and the dented turtle vents makes a measurable difference in what gets approved.
If the adjuster’s scope misses items — ridge cap, drip edge, ice-and-water shield required by your municipality’s code — those get supplemented after the fact with documentation. That’s normal, and a contractor who does storm work regularly handles it as a matter of course.
A Few Practical Notes
Get inspected even if you don’t see damage from the ground. Hail bruising is nearly invisible from the driveway. So is a slope full of unsealed shingles.
Don’t wait a year. Illinois policies have reporting deadlines, and the longer you wait, the harder it is to tie damage to a specific event.
Be careful with door-knockers. After a hail event in the western suburbs, out-of-state crews show up in force. Some are fine. Many are gone by winter, along with your workmanship warranty. Ask where the office is, ask for a local license and insurance certificate, and ask who you call in three years if a pipe boot leaks.
Tarp only if you have an active leak. If water is coming in, get it covered and photograph it before and after. Otherwise, leave the roof alone until it’s been inspected.
A storm damage inspection should take 45 minutes to an hour and a half on a typical home, and it should leave you with more information than you had before, whether or not you end up hiring anyone. If you’re in the Chicago area and want a look at your roof after a storm, we’ll come out, get on the roof, go in the attic, and tell you what’s actually there.