Your roof is designed to put up with everything Mother Nature brings in Southwest Florida. Year after year, it shrugs off the elements, from heat waves to hailstorms. While torrential rain and hail certainly have their impacts, perhaps nothing affects your roof quite like heavy winds. Wind damage can make your roof more susceptible to water damage, even if there are no visible signs of severe wind-related issues.
When should you be concerned about the effects of wind on your home’s roof? What damages should you watch for? Most importantly, when should you call in the experts? This quick guide to wind damage will answer these questions and more.
How Does Wind Damage Your Roof?
Although your roof is designed to withstand all sorts of weather, windstorms can be surprisingly destructive. Most roofs can handle winds up to 90 mph, and in areas prone to hurricanes, they are built for even higher winds. But in reality, it doesn’t take hurricane winds to damage your roof. According to the National Severe Storm Laboratory, severe thunderstorms can generate winds exceeding 100 mph, about twice the 50-60 mph threshold for damaging winds.
Some of the effects of extreme wind damage are more obvious than others. For example, wind damage can cause entire sections of your roof to bend, lift or even fall off. Causes of other obvious damages are heavy hail, flying debris or branches. But then there are the not so obvious signs. Wind damage can aggregate over time causing issues of increasing severity you may not notice until it’s too late.
Any time wind lifts shingles away from your roof, roofing nails loosen and the sealant bond between the shingle and the roof is broken. This increases the likelihood that water will make its way into your home even if the shingle stays on the roof. Missing shingles can create weak points so that future wind storms can get underneath the remaining shingles, creating lift and risking entire sections of shingles flying away. Meanwhile, weakened corners, valleys, and flashings allow water to seep into your home.
What Should You Look for?
After heavy winds, perform a quick external inspection of your home’s roof. Watch for these signs of moderate to severe wind damage:
- Missing shingles. Look for obvious bare spots on your roof as well as shingle debris scattered about your property.
- Damaged shingles. Damaged shingles may be missing granulation, curled at the edges, cracked, broken or torn.
- Damaged or missing roof components. Components such as ridge vents and gutters may be cracked, sagging, broken or missing.
- Tree limbs and debris. Tree limbs, leaves, and other debris on the roof indicates winds heavy enough to lift shingles and begin causing water damage.
If you suspect damage, contact a licensed roofing contractor to evaluate your roof as soon as possible. Your contractor should document wind damage with both a written description and photos. They can provide a detailed inventory of needed repairs along with a cost estimate free of charge.
Also contact your insurance company to report the damage and find out what your insurance covers. It is also a good idea to look at your manufacturer warranty and contractor warranty as well. If your roof fails as a result of sloppy workmanship or poor-quality materials, these warranties may come into play.
Next, perform an interior inspection. Watch for any signs of water damage, such as sagging, leaky, or discolored top-floor ceilings. In addition, check your attic for the same, as well as any wet rafters.
When Should You Call?
If you experience a wind storm with gusts approaching or exceeding 50 miles per hour, it is likely that there is damage to your roof severe enough to warrant repairs. As soon as you notice the above signs of damaged roofing components call a roofing expert. Failing to repair minor damage to your roof can allow wind to further damage shingles. This increases your home’s risk for moisture intrusion with each subsequent storm.
Even if you don’t see any damage during your inspection, a professional roofer should be able to spot the early warning signs. The untrained eye can easily miss many of these signs. That’s why even if you haven’t noticed any signs of damage after a storm or extreme weather event, you should still schedule a roof inspection. By the time the more noticeable warning signs of wind damage appear, it’s already too late to mitigate roof damage. That’s why you need to have storm damage fixed as soon as possible.
Contact a roofing expert to assess the damage to your roof and receive a quote for any repairs before beginning work. Addressing the issue now can prevent water damage, and potentially a total roof replacement in the near future. All Weather Tite can handle roofing repairs ranging from shingle replacement to complete roof replacement. Contact us to get an estimate on your roofing project.