Most storm damage is not dramatic. A roof that has lost its weatherproofing usually looks much the same from the pavement as it did the day before, which is why so much of it is found weeks later by a damp patch rather than on the morning after.
The honest position is that a homeowner standing in the garden cannot rule storm damage out. You can rule it IN — there are plenty of signs that mean something has definitely happened — but no ground-level check establishes that a roof is sound.
That is not a sales line. It is simply the geometry. From the ground you are looking at a steeply angled surface from underneath, at distance, and the parts of a roof that fail most often are the ones you can see least: the ridge line, the far slope, the valleys between roof planes, the flashings at every junction and the back of the house.
The one rule that matters more than all the rest. Do not climb onto the roof, and do not put a ladder up to get a better look. A wet, wind-loaded roof with material that has already shifted is genuinely dangerous, and people are seriously hurt every winter establishing this for themselves. Everything below can be done with your feet on the floor.
Before looking up, look at the ground. What has landed is the single most reliable evidence available to you, and it is often cleared away before anybody thinks to record it.
Photograph anything you find where it lies, before you move it. Your phone records the date and that record is worth having, whether or not you end up making a claim.
Stand back as far as the plot allows and look at each elevation in turn. From across the road if you can. Binoculars are genuinely useful here and a ladder is not.
Run your eye along the top of the roof. It should be dead straight and evenly spaced. Look for a tile sitting proud of its neighbours, a gap, a tile rotated out of line, or a section that dips. The ridge is the most exposed line on any roof and has no course of material above it for protection, so it is usually the first thing to move.
The verge is the sloping edge at each gable end; the eaves is the bottom edge. Wind gets under a roof at its edges, not in the middle of a slope, so lifted or missing material along either is a specific signal rather than a general one.
Look for gaps, for a slate or tile that has slipped down out of line, and for anything sitting at a different angle from its neighbours. On a slate roof, a dark rectangle is a missing slate showing the felt or the batten beneath.
Check that the pots are upright and that the mortar at the top — the flaunching — has not cracked away. Look at the lead flashing where the stack passes through the roof: it should sit flat against the brickwork, not stand away from it.
Sagging, a section pulled away from the fascia, or plant growth and debris visible above the rim. In the next spell of rain, watch whether water is running down the wall rather than through the downpipe.
The loft is the most informative place in the house after a storm, because you are looking at the underside of the roof with nothing in the way. Go up in daylight, take a torch anyway, and stay on the joists.
Do not go into the loft if the ceiling below is bulging, sagging or dripping. A ceiling holding water is heavier than it looks and it can come down. Stay out of the room beneath it too, keep children and pets away, and turn off the electricity to that room at the consumer unit if you can do so safely.
Internal signs are the ones people notice first, and they are also the most misleading, because water rarely appears directly beneath where it got in. It can enter at a lifted tile near the ridge, run along a batten, cross a rafter and drop through a ceiling several metres away.
Note where and when you first saw each one. If a stain grows during rain and dries between, that is a live leak. If it stays the same size regardless of weather, it may be an old one, which matters if you are dealing with an insurer.
Most storm damage can wait for a normal appointment. Some of it should not.
There is one category worth naming because none of the checks above will find it. A storm can loosen material without removing it, and it can fatigue fixings that then fail weeks later in a much smaller wind.
This is why a roof can lose tiles in an ordinary February gale having survived a named storm intact in January. The named storm did the damage; the ordinary gale finished it. If your roof came through something severe, it is reasonable to have it looked at even if nothing appears to have happened.
T & T Roofing South Wales assesses storm-damaged roofs across fifteen areas of South Wales, and the assessment is free. If we find nothing wrong we will tell you that.
Weeks or months. Wind can loosen material and fatigue fixings without removing anything, so the failure comes later in a much smaller wind. A leak may also only show once enough water has tracked through.
We would strongly advise against it. A wet roof with material that has already shifted is dangerous, and everything genuinely useful can be established from the ground, from the loft and from inside the house.
It depends where it is and what is beneath it. A single tile on a large slope with sound underlay is not usually an emergency; a gap near a ridge, a valley or a chimney is more serious because those are the points that carry water.
That does not establish the roof is sound, because the parts that fail most often are the ones you can see least. If the property came through something severe, an assessment is worth having.
Storm damage in South Wales? T & T Roofing South Wales will assess the roof, explain what needs repairing and give you a free, no-obligation quotation. Storm Damage Roof Repairs South Wales has the full detail, or call us on 07766 547309.
Tell us what the weather has done and what you can see from the ground. We will come back to you — usually the same day.
If water is coming in now, please call rather than email — 07766 547309.
