How to tell if roof hail damage is serious enough to fix
Photos often do not show how bad hail damage really is, leaving homeowners unable to tell if they need an expensive professional repair or a simple DIY fix. Without knowing the actual severity, people are left guessing whether to risk a major leak or spend thousands of dollars they cannot easily afford.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
How to tell if roof hail damage is serious enough to fix
- 1Spraying roof tar over damaged areas to prevent leaksDid this help you?
- 2Filing an insurance claim to have an adjuster inspect the roofDid this help you?
- 3Contacting local roofing companies for independent estimatesDid this help you?
- 4Attempting DIY patches or looking into replacement tapes and preservative methodsDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“We recently experienced golf ball sized hail damage recently that came out of nowhere and it pummeled our rooftop for sure, but we can’t really tell based on the images how sever it is as we lack the knowledge.”source ↗
“He says that it’s definitely going to leak because it’s seriously damaged, but I don’t know enough and we can’t really afford a $10k repair.”source ↗
“I would greatly appreciate your opinion on whether or not we actually need to end up spending almost 10 grand to get it repaired or if I can just spray some roof tar over it to prevent leak damage.”source ↗
“Fairly new homeowner and saw some things that don't look great.”source ↗