Hail Damaged Slate Roof

It takes a trained eye to spot hail damage to roof shingles.

Hail damaged slate roof. The effect of that impact is to either break or puncture the slates and or dent metal flashings. Slate that has only been on the roof a decade or two is harder than older slate which can soften over time. Roofs with multiple shingle layers may be damaged by smaller hail stones due to a softer support surface directly under the top shingle layer. There will be many people and companies that will attempt to address these challenges whether that means fixing or replacing the roofs.

Because seamless gutters are frequently feature aluminum or copper construction the signs of hail damage include telltale denting. Original slate was poor quality the installation was a side lap single layer of slate and the size of the hailstones. It has been beat to death by the hail but only a few of the slates have been damaged. New slate is not likely to show bullet hole type damage.

In deciding whether damage is from hail it s important to look at the overall pattern of damage across the roof. Hail is a powerful force of nature that can even damage roofs made with concrete tiles if the stones are large enough and wind speeds are high. A hail storm can severely damage or reduce the service life of a roofing system. Hail damage to roof shingles can be very obvious or very difficult to uncover.

Note the aluminum vent above. External impacts are not limited to hail but may be from windborne or thrown rocks golf balls or even bullets. If your roof contains one layer of common asphalt shingles it usually takes a 1 or above diameter hail stoneto cause damage roof hail damage. In most cases slate roof tiles are resistant to hail damage and other impact damage.

Hail damage is primarily displayed as holes with sharp edges in the slate although it can include slates with broken corners or edges. Gutters are also susceptible to hail damage. Smaller hail typically does little damage to slate. Breaks from hail impacts can be in the body of the slate or along the edge but may not be as visible if it does not totally dislodge the broken slate.

The damaged slates should simply be replaced. As you can see many of these hail impacts punches holes right through the slate. However there are a number of factors that could cause damage such as. Hail is frozen water propelled through the air by the force of wind and gravity and it can damage a slate roof upon impact.

Evanston slate tile and copper roofs are the finest roofs in the world and have been installed on homes in the area for many centuries. As the sizes of the hail increases so does the potential for big damage. A roof with a single layer of slate is more likely to develop leaks as the result of a hailstrike. As you can see on the first image below the surface granules have been knocked off of the shingle very clearly.

On june 6 2018 hailstones the size of baseballs hit parts of north texas from carrollton to coppell to arlington with significant property damage. As shown in this photo a combination of a larger hail and an approximately 100 year old slate roof sustained significant damage as a result.