When to have a roof inspected, what a real inspection covers, and what you should walk away holding at the end of it.
A post storm inspection and a maintenance inspection are not the same visit, and neither one should end with a verbal opinion and nothing in writing. These answers cover what we look at and photograph, how a roof gets measured, how to tell an inspection from a sales call, and what a homeowner receives compared with what goes to the insurance carrier.
Inspected first. Oklahoma allows filing up to 24 months out where damage is not evident without inspection, so there is no race to the phone.
The soft metals tell you the hail size and are easier to read than shingles. Gutters, vents, flashing, air conditioner fins, siding and screens.
Because the panels are rarely the problem. On an exposed-fastener roof the water usually comes through the screws, where the rubber washer has failed.
Four things get mistaken for hail. The published test is direction: hail dents inward and fractures the mat, marring pushes material outward into a ridge.
Three free government sources will tell you, and each has a gap. NOAA runs 75 to 90 days behind, and hail under an inch usually never gets reported.
Most standard homes take one day, complex and larger homes two to four. The project around the install is longer and mostly spent waiting.
Often it is not. Walls, parapets, mortar joints, rooftop units and condensation all present as roof leaks, and water travels before it shows up inside.
Oklahoma registers roofers rather than licensing them. The public lookup, the insurance minimums, the display rules, and what changes on 1 January 2028.
Wear and tear is the most common denial reason and the one with a real answer. The five usual grounds, and what documentation actually addresses each.
Fractures in the mat, counted in test squares on every slope, plus what the soft metals record. What the inspection covers and how to be useful during it.
You can date a roof by measuring one shingle. A 36 inch width with a 5 inch exposure is the old three tab format, discontinued around 2008.
Hail damage on a shingle is a bruise: a circular dent with a fracture in the mat that feels soft. What it looks like and what gets mistaken for it.
