Storm and hail damage in Boone County

Mid Missouri gets its damaging weather from mature storm systems that have travelled a long way before they arrive, and that shapes what lands on the roof. Two distinct things happen, they happen in the same afternoon, and they leave completely different evidence.

Hail

Hail rarely punches through an asphalt shingle. It bruises it. The stone knocks granules off in a rough circle and fractures the asphalt mat beneath, and the shingle carries on looking like a shingle. What it has lost is the surface that keeps ultraviolet light off the mat, so the damage shows up later as accelerated ageing and then as a leak. In practice a bad hail spring produces a wave of ceiling stains the following year, which is why the storm date matters so much to an insurer and to you.

The evidence you can gather without a ladder is all on soft metal. Dents on gutters and downspouts, dimpling on roof vents and on the fins of the air conditioning condenser, splatter marks on a painted deck rail or a fence cap. Soft metal takes a mark at lower energy than shingles do, so pristine gutters under a supposedly ruined roof is a combination worth a second opinion.

Straight line wind

The other half, and in Boone County it does at least as much damage as hail. A mature thunderstorm outflow arrives as a sustained push from one direction. It lifts shingles at the weakest edge, which in practice means a gable rake, the capping along the ridge, or the lowest run of shingles over a garage opening, and it peels from there. A shingle that has been lifted and dropped back is creased even when nothing is missing, and a crease is a hinge that will fail in the next event.

Because wind comes from one direction, wind damage is directional. If the damage is on the south and west faces and the north face is untouched, that is the shape of a wind claim rather than a hail claim, and it is worth saying so when somebody inspects.

What Missouri law says about the money

Missouri does not have Colorado’s roofing specific statute, but RSMo 407.725 covers the part that matters most. A contractor may not pay, waive or rebate an insurance deductible to the insured or to any person directly or indirectly associated with the property, and inducements of the gift card, prize and referral bounty type fall under the same prohibition.

That list is a better filter than any review site. The companies that offer those things are competing on something other than the roof.

A sensible order of operations

Photograph what you can see from the ground before anybody arrives. Write down the storm date. Get an inspection with written findings and photographs, and read them. Then involve the insurer if the findings support it.

One independent mid Missouri roofing company receives requests from this site. If the roof turns out to be old rather than damaged, that is a real answer and a useful one. The replacement page covers what happens next if it is, and roof leaks and flashing covers the smaller job.