Most storm marks are not storm damage, and the difference has a definition.
Steep-slope and residential low-slope roofs · single-family and small multifamily
Functional damage reduces what the roof can do. Cosmetic damage changes how it looks. Nearly every argument you are about to have is a disagreement about which of those you have.
How do I tell whether the storm actually damaged my roof?
Storm damage is functional when it reduces the roof's ability to shed water or shortens its service life. Everything else is cosmetic, and cosmetic marks are common on ageing roofs that no storm touched. Before anyone knocks, photograph the building from the ground with dates, note the storm date, and keep the evidence intact.
The short versionSection link
Nothing here is a coverage determination. Whether a policy responds to any of this is set by that policy, by the law of the state it was issued in, and by the facts of the loss. This page describes how roofing professionals define damage, not how an insurer will decide a claim.
- The definition that decides most disputes
- A roof is not functionally damaged unless its water-shedding capability is diminished or its expected service life is reducedScott J. Morrison, P.E., writing in NRCA's Professional Roofing. Everything outside that definition is cosmetic — which does not mean it is imaginary, only that it is not a performance loss.
- What hail has to do to an asphalt shingle
- Puncture it or fracture it — nothing less countsThe fracture starts on the underside, the region of maximum tensile strain, and propagates toward the granule surface. So it is always detectable from underneath, and sometimes not from on top.
- What granule loss on its own means
- Normal weathering, not damageGranule loss begins at manufacture and continues for the life of the shingle. On a shingle in good condition, a hailstone that removes enough granules to expose the coating asphalt also fractures the reinforcement and leaves a detectable bruise — so granules missing with no fracture is not a hail signature.
- What wind has to do to a shingle
- Leave a crease, fold, tear, or take it awayIIBEC: “A shingle that is simply not adhered and is not creased, folded, torn, or missing, is not evidence of wind-caused damage.” Loose is not the same as damaged.
- Why loose shingles are so often misread
- Sealant strips unseal with age on their ownThe IIBEC paper, reporting a University of Florida study (Dixon et al., 2014) it quotes, notes that shingles appear to remain sealed for the first four to five years of service life, after which the frequency of unsealing trends upward. Under-driven nails in the sealant strip and debris in it also stop shingles sealing in the first place.
- The one thing you can genuinely document from the ground
- Dents in soft metalGutters, downspouts, vent hoods, and the aluminium fins of an air-conditioning unit. Metals are a permanent record of every hailstorm they have endured, and dent width in AC fins is typically about 80 percent of the hailstone diameter.
- Evidence with an expiry date
- Spatter marks — about a yearAreas where grime, oxide, algae or microorganisms have been cleaned off by hailstone impacts. They typically linger about a year depending on exposure and climate, and larger hail leaves larger spatter.
- When the roof is actually looked at
- Usually days to months after the eventNRCA: assessing hail damage is a roof system inspection that usually occurs several days to several months after the hail event, and whether hail fell at a site may be determined through statements and weather reports.
- If the adjuster and your roofer disagree
- Ask for a reinspectionNRCA describes a reinspection as the adjuster and the roofing contractor meeting to review the damage together, and says reinspections are common. It is a normal step, not an escalation.
This page's advice — document first, decide later — and when that is the wrong orderSection link
The position taken here is that the record you make in the first daylight is worth more than any opinion offered at your door, and that the functional-versus-cosmetic question should stay open until someone competent has actually looked. There are real situations where following that order costs you something.
Best when
- The building is dry inside and structurally sound, so there is time to build a record before anyone touches anything.
- You have a roof of an age where both answers are plausible — old enough to carry ordinary weathering marks, young enough that a real loss would matter.
- Someone is already at the door offering an inspection, which is precisely the moment an independent record is most valuable and least likely to exist.
- The visible evidence is on soft metal at eye level: gutters, downspouts, vent hoods, an air-conditioning unit. That evidence is permanent, photographable, and something you can capture without help.
- You expect to be comparing an adjuster's scope against a contractor's scope later, because the photographs you take now are the only version of the roof that predates both of them.
Think twice if
- Water is entering the building right now. Containment and safety outrank documentation; photograph what you can while you work, but do not delay stopping water to compose a better picture.
- Your policy imposes a duty to give prompt notice of a loss. Building a perfect record before telephoning anyone can itself create a problem. Notify first — documentation continues afterwards, and it does not stop when the claim is open.
- The roof is visibly gone — deck exposed, structure open to sky. The functional-versus-cosmetic argument has already been settled by the weather, and the sequence on this page is overhead you do not need.
- The roof was already at the end of its service life. A storm claim may be the wrong frame entirely: shingles that have lost enough granules to expose the coating asphalt without any fracture are, in NRCA's account, typically already nearing the end of their lives. Ageing and condition are handled on the roof age and condition page.
- You live somewhere with an unusual regulatory regime for post-storm claims — a jurisdiction that restricts assignment of benefits, licenses public adjusters distinctively, or sets specific claim deadlines. The general sequence here is not tuned to that, and a local answer beats a national one.
- You are a commercial or multifamily owner. Low-slope assessment uses core cuts, moisture surveys and infrared, and the diagnostic vocabulary on this page is steep-slope.
What changes the answer
- The covering. The threshold hail size that functionally damages a roof differs by material, and so does what a split or fracture means: on wood and slate, foot traffic produces marks that closely resemble hail.
- The age of the roof at the date of the storm. Below about four or five years, an unsealed shingle is anomalous. Well beyond it, unsealing is ordinary and proves nothing about the weather.
- Whether the damage is on soft metal or on the covering. One you can document yourself, from the ground, permanently. The other you cannot, at all.
- How long ago the storm was. Spatter marks are gone in roughly a year; dents are not. A claim raised late is arguing from a thinner record, not a different roof.
- Whether anyone has been on the roof since. Foot traffic — including an inspection — creates marks that then have to be distinguished from the storm's.
- Your policy's own terms: the deductible structure, whether roof coverings settle at replacement cost or actual cash value, and whether any cosmetic-damage exclusion is attached. Those change what a correct assessment is worth, not what it is.
The month after the storm, and what the record is doing while it passesSection link
Two things run in parallel after a storm: a sequence of visits, and a physical record that is quietly getting better or worse. Almost every recoverable mistake made in this period is a mistake about the second one.
The key, in words
- Stay off the roof. Nothing below this line requires you to be on it, and a storm-damaged roof is an unknown structure.
- Photograph from the ground, at first daylight. Wide shots of each elevation, then close shots of gutters, downspouts, vent hoods, flashing, and the air-conditioning unit. Photograph the debris on the ground and in the gutters before anyone clears it.
- Contain water inside and keep receipts. Buckets, towels, moved furniture, electronics unplugged at a dry outlet. Texas’s insurance regulator’s standing consumer advice is to make temporary repairs to prevent additional damage, keep a list of repairs, and save the receipts, and NRCA says the same — keep the receipts for temporary repairs, because the insurer is likely to reimburse them.
- Be there for the inspection. The same regulator advises being present when the adjuster visits and pointing out all the damage. You are not there to argue; you are there so that nothing on your list goes unexamined.
- A contractor at the door. This is the earliest event on the timeline and the one with the least information behind it. NAIC’s consumer guidance is to file the claim before hiring anyone, to avoid contractors who pressure a quick decision or solicit door-to-door, and never to pay the full amount up front.
- Notify your insurer. NRCA’s consumer sheet puts this early and plainly: gather your policy or policy number and call the insurance company as soon as possible after the event to request an assessment.
- The adjuster and your own roofer both look. NRCA’s recommended sequence is that you call a professional roofing contractor and ask for a similar assessment to the insurer’s. Two independent looks is the design, not a sign of distrust.
- Reinspection if they differ. NRCA: if there are discrepancies between the adjuster’s findings and the contractor’s, you may request a reinspection, at which the two meet and review the damage together. NRCA describes reinspections as common.
- Dents in soft metal are permanent. Metals are, in Morrison’s phrase, a permanent record of all the hailstorms they have endured. This bar never thins. It is the only line on the diagram that works entirely in your favour with time.
- Spatter marks fade. Roughly a year, depending on exposure and climate. If you are reading this eighteen months after the storm, that evidence has already gone and the argument will be conducted without it.
- Evidence you cover or clean away is gone. This is the bar you control, and the one people damage. Tarping straight over marks, clearing gutters of the debris that dates the event, pressure-washing, and — NRCA is explicit here — puncturing a blister or spreading coating or mastic all cover up evidence a roofing contractor needs to work out what happened.
Why the second lane runs late, and why that is normal
A roof is usually assessed days to months after the event, not hours. NRCA states it directly for hail: assessment is accomplished by a roof system inspection that usually occurs several days to several months after the event, and whether hail actually fell at a site may be determined through statements and weather reports. After a widespread event, the insurer may set up special procedures, and every interval on the diagram stretches.
That delay is exactly why the first lane matters. The person who eventually looks at your roof is reconstructing a night they were not present for, from marks that have been weathering ever since. Your photographs from first daylight are the only fixed point in that reconstruction, and they cost nothing but the hour.
What the insurer is deciding, which is a narrower question
NRCA describes the assessment as answering two questions: whether there is sufficient damage to declare the roof system a total loss, and what size the roof is and how many shingles replacing it would need. Those are the questions being asked. Notice what they are not. They are not “is this roof old,” nor “could this roof be better,” nor “did something unpleasant happen here.” A conversation that drifts into those is a conversation that has left the claim.
Functional damage has a published definition. Cosmetic damage is everything else.Section link
There is a sentence that decides most roofing storm arguments, and it is not in anybody’s policy. Writing in NRCA’s Professional Roofing, the engineer Scott J. Morrison states it this way: a roof system is not functionally damaged by hail unless the roof’s water-shedding capabilities are diminished or the roof’s expected service life is reduced.
Two consequences follow immediately, and they cut in opposite directions.
The first is that a mark is not damage. A roof can be visibly marked all over — dented, spattered, scuffed, missing granules — and still shed water for exactly as long as it was going to. That is the situation Morrison is describing when he writes that many roofing professionals, insurance professionals and homeowners mistakenly assume a roof system needs to be replaced or repaired following a hailstorm.
The second is that damage can be nearly invisible. An impact fracture in an asphalt shingle begins on the underside — the region of maximum tensile strain — and propagates upward toward the granule surface. It is therefore always detectable from underneath, and only sometimes from on top, where it may register as a localised soft spot that inspectors call a bruise. A roof that looks fine from the driveway can be functionally damaged, and a roof that looks dreadful can be sound.
Both consequences point the same way about base rates. NRCA’s own consumer sheet on hail says most hail-related damage is cosmetic and will not affect the life of roof shingles, with replacement possibly required in cases of severe wood splitting, significant granule loss, shingle penetration and fracture. That is a general observation about hail events rather than a statement about your roof, and it is a statement made by the trade association whose members are paid to replace roofs — which is exactly why it is worth reading. The expectation to carry into the conversation is that a mark usually is not a loss, held alongside the knowledge that occasionally it is and you cannot see it.
That asymmetry is why this page will not help you reach a verdict, and says so plainly. What it can do is stop you accepting the wrong one. When someone tells you your roof is damaged, or tells you it is not, the follow-up question is the same in both directions: which of the two things in that definition has happened, and what physical feature establishes it?
Why “cosmetic” is not an insult
Cosmetic is a description of a performance outcome, not a judgement about whether you should mind. A dented aluminium fascia is genuinely uglier than it was, and that is a real loss to the person who has to look at it. What the word means, narrowly, is that the roof’s job has not got harder and its remaining life has not got shorter. Some policies treat cosmetic loss differently — some exclude it outright by endorsement — and that is a policy question, covered from the insurance side on the hail hazard page. What it is not is a synonym for “nothing happened.”
The definition is repeated here because the rest of this page hangs off it. Its consequences for hail specifically — the published threshold sizes by covering, why severe granule loss means opposite things on a sound roof and a spent one, the impact ratings and the policy endorsements that borrow the word “cosmetic” — are worked through on the hail hazard page and are not rehearsed again below. What follows here is the part that page does not cover: telling storm marks apart from their look-alikes across coverings, and what to do about the record in the month after the event.
The same mark, different originsSection link
Almost every disputed storm claim is a disagreement about a mark that has more than one plausible cause. This table sets the storm signature beside its two most common look-alikes — ordinary weathering, and somebody's feet — using the discrimination criteria published by the trade sources named beneath it. The last column is the one to read first.
| What you are looking at | Storm signature | The look-alike | What separates them | Can you settle it from the ground? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bare asphalt showing through missing granules | On a shingle in good condition, a hailstone that removes enough granules to expose the coating asphalt also fractures the reinforcement and leaves a detectable bruise. | Ordinary weathering. Granule loss begins when the shingle is manufactured and continues for its whole life; hail, rain, wind and foot traffic all displace loose granules. | The fracture. Granules gone with no fracture is weathering. Enough gone to expose asphalt with no fracture at all indicates a shingle already near the end of its service life. | No. The fracture is on the underside, and finding it means handling the shingle. |
| A shingle that lifts by hand | Wind that lifts a sealed shingle leaves lasting evidence: a crease, a fold, a tear, or missing material. | Age. Sealant strips unseal systematically as they age — roughly beyond the first four to five years of service the frequency trends upward. Under-driven nails in the strip and debris in it also prevent sealing from the start. | The crease. IIBEC: a shingle simply not adhered and not creased, folded, torn or missing is not evidence of wind-caused damage. | Partly. Missing material is visible from the ground. A crease usually is not. |
| A split in a wood shingle or shake | A hail split runs along the grain with a sizeable coincident dent, is sharp-edged, and nearly disappears when the butt corners are pushed together; a recent one is bright orange inside. | Weathering split: V-shaped from butt toward head, V-shaped in cross-section, grey and weathered inside, and it cannot be closed because wood has eroded away. Morrison reports his own firm finding more than 30 percent of the finest edge-grain and 65 percent of flat-grain cut wood split naturally from weathering — a single assessment firm's field figure, not an industry statistic. | Whether it closes, what colour the interior is — and, against foot traffic, whether there is a dent. A footfall split is identical to a hail split except that it initiates no sizeable surface indentation. | No. It is a hands-on test performed on the shingle. |
| A cracked slate or tile | Arcs, or multiple fractures radiating from a common impact point, concentrated at butt corners and edges. | Foot traffic. Near-linear fractures across a slate, and linear fractures in tile, are usually the result of someone walking on it. | The geometry of the crack: radial and arced from a point, versus straight across. | No — and this is the covering on which an inspection visit does the most harm. |
| Clean patches on grimy surfaces | Spatter marks: surface areas where grime, oxide, algae or microorganisms have been cleaned away by hailstone impacts. Larger hail leaves larger spatter. | Nothing much — but they are perishable, typically lingering about a year depending on exposure and climate. | Time. Their presence corroborates a recent event; their absence a year or more later proves nothing either way. | Sometimes. They appear on flashing, vent hoods, painted metal and hard surfaces you can reach and photograph. |
| Dents in gutters, hoods, and AC fins | Impact dents. Metals are a permanent record of every hailstorm they have endured, and dent width in the aluminium fins of an air-conditioning unit is typically about 80 percent of the hailstone diameter. | Ladder contact, tools, debris, or an older storm that nobody documented — metal keeps all of them, undated. | Pattern and distribution rather than the individual dent, and corroboration from the weather record for the date. | Yes. This is the one row where a homeowner with a phone can build real, permanent, ground-level evidence. |
| Blisters — bumps or craters in the shingle face | None. A blister is not an impact feature. | A shingle condition. NRCA defines a blister as shingle expansion caused by trapped gases such as air or water vapour. | Origin: trapped gas from within the shingle, not a stone from above. NRCA warns that puncturing one covers up evidence a roofing contractor needs. | No — and do not let anyone pop one to find out. |
Read this table one item at a time
Bare asphalt showing through missing granules
- Storm signature
- On a shingle in good condition, a hailstone that removes enough granules to expose the coating asphalt also fractures the reinforcement and leaves a detectable bruise.
- The look-alike
- Ordinary weathering. Granule loss begins when the shingle is manufactured and continues for its whole life; hail, rain, wind and foot traffic all displace loose granules.
- What separates them
- The fracture. Granules gone with no fracture is weathering. Enough gone to expose asphalt with no fracture at all indicates a shingle already near the end of its service life.
- Can you settle it from the ground?
- No. The fracture is on the underside, and finding it means handling the shingle.
A shingle that lifts by hand
- Storm signature
- Wind that lifts a sealed shingle leaves lasting evidence: a crease, a fold, a tear, or missing material.
- The look-alike
- Age. Sealant strips unseal systematically as they age — roughly beyond the first four to five years of service the frequency trends upward. Under-driven nails in the strip and debris in it also prevent sealing from the start.
- What separates them
- The crease. IIBEC: a shingle simply not adhered and not creased, folded, torn or missing is not evidence of wind-caused damage.
- Can you settle it from the ground?
- Partly. Missing material is visible from the ground. A crease usually is not.
A split in a wood shingle or shake
- Storm signature
- A hail split runs along the grain with a sizeable coincident dent, is sharp-edged, and nearly disappears when the butt corners are pushed together; a recent one is bright orange inside.
- The look-alike
- Weathering split: V-shaped from butt toward head, V-shaped in cross-section, grey and weathered inside, and it cannot be closed because wood has eroded away. Morrison reports his own firm finding more than 30 percent of the finest edge-grain and 65 percent of flat-grain cut wood split naturally from weathering — a single assessment firm's field figure, not an industry statistic.
- What separates them
- Whether it closes, what colour the interior is — and, against foot traffic, whether there is a dent. A footfall split is identical to a hail split except that it initiates no sizeable surface indentation.
- Can you settle it from the ground?
- No. It is a hands-on test performed on the shingle.
A cracked slate or tile
- Storm signature
- Arcs, or multiple fractures radiating from a common impact point, concentrated at butt corners and edges.
- The look-alike
- Foot traffic. Near-linear fractures across a slate, and linear fractures in tile, are usually the result of someone walking on it.
- What separates them
- The geometry of the crack: radial and arced from a point, versus straight across.
- Can you settle it from the ground?
- No — and this is the covering on which an inspection visit does the most harm.
Clean patches on grimy surfaces
- Storm signature
- Spatter marks: surface areas where grime, oxide, algae or microorganisms have been cleaned away by hailstone impacts. Larger hail leaves larger spatter.
- The look-alike
- Nothing much — but they are perishable, typically lingering about a year depending on exposure and climate.
- What separates them
- Time. Their presence corroborates a recent event; their absence a year or more later proves nothing either way.
- Can you settle it from the ground?
- Sometimes. They appear on flashing, vent hoods, painted metal and hard surfaces you can reach and photograph.
Dents in gutters, hoods, and AC fins
- Storm signature
- Impact dents. Metals are a permanent record of every hailstorm they have endured, and dent width in the aluminium fins of an air-conditioning unit is typically about 80 percent of the hailstone diameter.
- The look-alike
- Ladder contact, tools, debris, or an older storm that nobody documented — metal keeps all of them, undated.
- What separates them
- Pattern and distribution rather than the individual dent, and corroboration from the weather record for the date.
- Can you settle it from the ground?
- Yes. This is the one row where a homeowner with a phone can build real, permanent, ground-level evidence.
Blisters — bumps or craters in the shingle face
- Storm signature
- None. A blister is not an impact feature.
- The look-alike
- A shingle condition. NRCA defines a blister as shingle expansion caused by trapped gases such as air or water vapour.
- What separates them
- Origin: trapped gas from within the shingle, not a stone from above. NRCA warns that puncturing one covers up evidence a roofing contractor needs.
- Can you settle it from the ground?
- No — and do not let anyone pop one to find out.
Sources are the NRCA/Professional Roofing hail-identification article (steep-slope coverings, published 2009) and the IIBEC Interface wind paper (asphalt composition shingles, dated 2017), both listed in full in the source list. Neither is adopted code and neither is a coverage standard: they describe how competent assessors distinguish causes, not how any insurer will decide a claim. The table covers steep-slope coverings only.
What to photograph at first daylight, from the groundSection link
This is the whole of the homeowner's job, and it takes about an hour. Everything on this list is done standing on the ground. Nothing on it requires you to identify damage — that is the point. You are making a record, not a diagnosis.
The four things worth doing
- Fix the date. Write down the date and time you first saw the damage and what the weather was doing. Then look up the event in the public record: NOAA’s Storm Events Database and the Storm Prediction Center’s daily reports. Note what you find, including if you find nothing. Both are records of what was reported, not measurements at your address, and SPC marks its daily reports preliminary — so this establishes a candidate date, not a fact about your roof.
- Photograph each elevation wide, then close. A wide frame of every side of the building, so the close shots can later be located on it. Then close frames of the gutters and downspouts, every vent hood and pipe boot you can see, the flashing at any wall the roof meets, and any air-conditioning condenser. That last one is not an afterthought: soft-metal fins are the ground-level evidence that is both permanent and size-indicative.
- Photograph the ground and the gutters before clearing. Debris, granule accumulation, pieces of shingle in the flowerbed, branch strikes on the lawn, dents in a metal shed or a car roof. This is the material that most often disappears in the first tidy-up and most often cannot be recreated.
- Photograph the inside, and date it. Ceiling and wall stains, drips, wet flooring, damaged contents — all of it photographed from where you are standing. Do not open an attic hatch and do not climb anything to get a better angle; a storm-loaded ceiling is not a thing to put your head into. Texas’s regulator advises making a list of the damage inside and outside the building alongside the photographs. Noting when you first saw each item is what turns that list into a dated record, and it is worth doing even though no source prescribes it. Remember that water travels along framing before it appears, so a stain locates a symptom, not an entry point.
What makes a photograph useful later
Not resolution. Location. A close-up of a dent with no surrounding context proves that a dent exists somewhere. The same dent shot twice — once wide enough to identify the elevation, once close — proves where it is on your building. Keep the pairs together, keep the originals with their embedded timestamps rather than screenshots, and keep them somewhere that is not only the phone.
Keep a running log alongside them: who came, when, what they said, what they left behind. Texas’s regulator advises keeping a record of everyone you talk to at your insurance company; NAIC’s advice on the contractor side is narrower but points the same way — pay in instalments by cheque or card so the payments leave a record, and get an invoice and a receipt. The same logging discipline applied to contractors is worth more than either, because that is the conversation nobody else is recording.
What not to do, and why
- Do not climb, and do not send anyone up for photographs. The evidence you would gather is not worth the fall, and every trip across the covering adds footfall marks that then have to be separated from the storm’s.
- Do not clear before you photograph. Texas’s regulator advises not throwing anything away until the adjuster says so. Cover what must be covered to stop water; photograph it first.
- Do not repair beyond containment. NRCA is explicit that, except in extreme situations, homeowners should not attempt roof repairs, because puncturing a blister or spreading coating or mastic covers up evidence a roofing contractor needs to work out what happened. Temporary tarping over openings is the exception, and it is work for somebody equipped to do it.
- Do not collect samples from an older roof. If the covering could predate 1990, leave broken pieces where they lie and photograph them. EPA’s guidance is to leave undamaged asbestos-containing material alone; a fragment that is picked up, snapped and pocketed is disturbed material. What that means in practice is a testing question, not an age question.
Two independent assessments, in the right sequenceSection link
The design of this process is that two parties with different interests look at the same roof, and a third step exists for when they disagree. Almost everything that goes wrong is a version of collapsing that into one.
NRCA’s consumer guidance lays out a sequence that is worth reading as a sequence. Gather your policy or policy number and call your insurance company as soon as possible after the event to request an assessment. Separately, call a professional roofing contractor and ask for a similar assessment. If there are discrepancies between the adjuster’s findings and the contractor’s findings, you may request a reinspection, at which the adjuster and the contractor meet and review the damage together. NRCA notes that reinspections are common.
Two independent looks is the design, not a symptom of distrust. The adjuster works for the insurer and is answering the two narrow questions NRCA describes: whether there is enough damage to declare the roof a total loss, and how big the roof is. The contractor works for you, or wants to, and is answering a different question about what the roof needs. Both answers are worth having. Neither is complete on its own.
The order that gets collapsed, and what it costs
The failure mode is a single person arriving first, inspecting, diagnosing, quoting, and producing a document to sign, all in one visit, before the insurer has been told anything. NAIC’s guidance runs the other way: file the claim first, so the insurer verifies what repairs are actually needed. That ordering does not exist to protect the insurer. It exists so that the first description of your roof is not written by the party that will be paid to replace it.
The reverse failure is just as real and gets less attention: accepting the adjuster’s finding as final because it arrived on letterhead. An adjuster’s inspection is one person’s reading of a roof, usually days to months after the event, sometimes from photographs. The reinspection step exists precisely because competent people looking at the same roof reach different conclusions. Asking for one is using the process, not fighting it.
What a door-knock is actually offering
A free inspection is an offer to put a person on your roof and produce a document. NAIC’s guidance is to avoid contractors who pressure a quick decision or solicit door-to-door, never to pay the full amount up front, and to be cautious about signing an assignment of benefits — the agreement that lets a contractor seek payment directly from your insurer. NRCA’s own list of warning signs is blunter: be wary of a contractor whose references are all out of state, who only wants cash, who wants money before materials are on site, or who offers “specials” or extra-cheap work.
None of this means the person at your door is dishonest. Legitimate contractors canvass after storms; that is where the work is. It means that the moment of maximum pressure is the worst moment to sign, and that nothing about a roof requires a signature in a driveway. Verification is a separate exercise, set out on the contractor selection guide.
One thing this page will not tell you
Whether to file at all. That decision involves your deductible, your claims history, how your carrier and your state treat roof-covering settlement, and what the roof was worth before the storm. Those are policy and personal-finance questions with jurisdictional answers, and a national education page that gave you a rule would be pretending to knowledge it does not have. What this page can do is make sure that whatever you decide, you decide it holding an accurate description of your roof rather than someone else’s.
What changes this on a real buildingSection link
- Hail and impact
Hail damage is a materials question before it is a weather question. The smallest hail size that typically damages a covering differs by covering, and on the published thresholds the same stone that fractures a lightweight three-tab shingle can leave a heavyweight laminate, a tile or a slate untouched. Those thresholds are stated for hard hail striking perpendicular to a roof in relatively good or midlife condition, so an old roof is not covered by them. The mechanism, the impact-rating tests and their limits, and how to read hail climatology without over-reading it are worked through on the hail hazard page rather than repeated here.
An impact classification such as UL 2218 Class 4 is a laboratory result for a product, not a promise that a roof is hail proof and not a coverage determination. It says nothing about whether your roof is damaged today.- Wind
Wind damage is progressive and starts at the edges. NRCA describes the pattern: most wind damage begins at the edges of roof systems, and once material loosens, suction raises it and pressure pushes it, exposing the underside and giving the wind more to grab — a peeling effect that grows through repeated wind cycles, usually over time. That last clause is the awkward one for a claim, because “over time” can mean over several storms. Uplift mechanics and debris impact are covered on the tornado and high-wind page.
A shingle's marketing wind-speed rating is a test result under ASTM D3161 or D7158, not a determination about the wind that hit your building. Wind performance is site- and building-specific: exposure, height, geometry, pressure zone and attachment all change it.- Maintenance
Foot traffic is the confounder nobody warns you about. On wood shingles and shakes, a footfall split is identical to a hail-caused split except that it does not initiate a sizeable surface indentation. On slate and tile, near-linear fractures across a unit are usually the result of foot traffic, while hail produces arcs or multiple fractures radiating from a common impact point. Every person who walks your roof — including an inspector — adds marks that then have to be told apart from the storm’s.
This is a further reason not to invite a sequence of free inspections. Each visit is an intervention in the evidence, not a neutral observation of it.- Code and jurisdiction
The legal environment around post-storm roofing is set state-by-state and is not uniform. As one worked example, the Texas Department of Insurance states that a state law makes it illegal for contractors or roofers to offer to waive a deductible or to promise a rebate, and advises keeping proof that the deductible was paid. Separately, federal trade regulation gives a buyer three business days to cancel many sales solicited at their home — but it carries a carve-out for buyer-initiated emergency purchases, and state home-solicitation statutes may set different terms again.
The Texas deductible provision is one state's law, cited from that state's regulator. It is not a national rule, and no equivalent exists automatically anywhere else. Confirm what applies where the building is; this page names no requirement for any other jurisdiction.- Age of the covering
If the roof predates 1990, treat any disturbed material as potentially asbestos-containing. EPA’s guidance is to leave undamaged asbestos-containing materials alone, and warns that such materials may release fibres when disturbed, damaged, removed improperly, repaired, cut, torn, sanded, sawed, drilled or scraped. Picking up and pocketing a broken shingle as evidence is exactly the sort of disturbance to avoid; photograph it where it lies instead.
An age is not a determination. Only testing by a qualified professional establishes whether a specific material contains asbestos, and this page does not present a construction date as proof either way.- Moisture and ventilation
Interior evidence is not located where the roof is. Water travels along framing before it appears, so a stain is rarely under the entry point. Photograph and date interior stains anyway — they establish that water got in and when — but do not treat the stain’s position as a map of the roof. Tracing it is covered on the roof leaks page.
Questions to ask an installerSection link
These are for the roofing contractor, not the adjuster. The useful ones are the ones that reveal whether the person is diagnosing or selling, and most of them have a right answer that is available in writing.
Are you calling this functional damage or cosmetic damage, and what specifically makes it functional?
There is a published definition: the roof is not functionally damaged unless its water-shedding capability is diminished or its expected service life is reduced. A contractor who cannot name which of those two applies, and point at the physical feature that establishes it, cannot defend the position to an adjuster either.
You are describing hail marks. Where is the fracture, and did you find it from underneath?
An impact fracture in an asphalt shingle starts on the underside and propagates toward the granule surface, so it is always detectable from beneath and sometimes invisible from above. A confident diagnosis made entirely from the top surface is a diagnosis made from the wrong side of the shingle.
The shingles are loose. Are any of them creased, folded, or torn?
An unsealed shingle that is not creased, folded, torn or missing is not evidence of wind damage — sealant strips unseal with age on their own, and under-driven nails or debris in the strip stop them sealing at all. “Loose” on its own is a statement about the roof’s history, not about the storm.
How much of what you are showing me could have been caused by someone walking on the roof?
On wood, foot-traffic splits are identical to hail splits except for the absent surface dent. On slate and tile, near-linear fractures are usually footfall. A contractor who has already thought about this will answer immediately; one who has not will treat the question as hostile.
What date are you attributing this to, and on what basis?
Dating is frequently the contested part of a claim. Statements and weather reports are how a site is tied to an event; the NOAA storm record is public and you can look at it yourself. An answer of “the recent storms” is not a date.
Are you asking me to sign anything today, and what exactly does it authorise?
An inspection agreement, a contingency contract and an assignment of benefits are three different documents with three different consequences, and they arrive in the same folder. NAIC’s consumer guidance is to be cautious about signing assignments of benefits, which let a contractor seek payment directly from the insurer. Take it away and read it somewhere quiet; nothing about a roof requires a signature at the door.
What is your permanent business address in this state, and can I have three local references?
NRCA’s consumer sheets list a permanent place of business, proof of insurance, a written proposal, licensing or bonding, and references in your own state, and say to proceed with caution if a contractor offers only out-of-state references. Verification steps are set out on the contractor selection guide.
Require these in writing
- The date of the storm the work is attributed to, and what evidence dates it.
- An explicit statement of which observed conditions are being called functional damage, and the physical feature establishing each one.
- Which observed conditions are being called cosmetic or pre-existing, stated as plainly as the damage is.
- Photographs keyed to elevations and slopes, so a later reader can find each item on the building.
- The scope of work in materials and quantities, separately from any discussion of what an insurer might pay.
- Payment schedule and any deposit, with no term making payment contingent on a claim outcome unless you and your own adviser have read it.
- Confirmation that nothing in the agreement assigns your insurance benefits, or, if it does, a plain statement of what that transfers.
Misconceptions and failure modesSection link
Each of these is a belief that a reasonable person forms in the first week after a storm, and each one is expensive.
Common misconceptions
Common belief
There was a bad storm here, so my roof has storm damage.
What is actually true
A storm occurring is a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. Damage depends on stone size and hardness, wind speed and direction at the building, the covering, and the covering’s condition — and small hailstones are far more common than large ones. Public storm reports also describe points where someone reported something, not a map of what fell on your street.
Common belief
There are granules in my gutters after the hail, so the shingles are damaged.
What is actually true
Granule loss begins when the shingle is made and continues for its whole life; hail, rain, wind and foot traffic all displace loose granules. On a shingle in good condition, a hailstone that removes enough granules to expose the coating asphalt also fractures the reinforcement and leaves a detectable bruise. If granules are missing and there is no fracture, what you have is weathering. If enough are gone to expose asphalt with no fracture at all, NRCA’s account is that the shingle was already nearing the end of its service life.
Common belief
Half my shingles lift up by hand, so the wind got under them.
What is actually true
When wind lifts a sealed-down shingle it leaves lasting evidence of the event: creases, folds, tears, or missing material. Not every poorly adhered tab got that way from wind. Unsealing is also what sealant strips do on their own as they age — beyond the first four to five years of service life, on the research IIBEC quotes, the frequency of unsealing trends upward — and it is what happens when nails were driven into the sealant strip or debris got into it at installation.
Common belief
The adjuster called it cosmetic, so the conversation is over.
What is actually true
It is a finding, not a verdict, and the industry has a named process for exactly this disagreement. NRCA describes requesting a reinspection at which the adjuster and the roofing contractor review the damage together, and calls reinspections common. What this page cannot tell you is whether pursuing one will change any outcome. That depends on the policy, the facts, and the law where you live.
Common belief
A free post-storm inspection is free.
What is actually true
It costs you two things that are not money. It puts a person on your roof, where their footfall adds marks that have to be distinguished from the storm’s afterwards. And it usually comes with a document. NAIC’s guidance is to file the claim before hiring anyone, and to be wary of contractors who solicit door-to-door or press for a quick decision.
Common belief
Signing at the door is safe, because federal law gives me three days to cancel anyway.
What is actually true
The Federal Trade Commission’s rule at 16 CFR Part 429 does cover many sales of $25 or more solicited at a buyer’s residence, and the required notice says the buyer may cancel at any time prior to midnight of the third business day after the date of the transaction. Two things stop that being a reason to sign. The first is an exclusion whose three conditions have to hold together: the buyer initiated the contact, the goods or services are needed to meet a bona fide immediate personal emergency, and the buyer gives the seller a separate dated, signed, handwritten statement describing the situation and expressly waiving the right to cancel. Read the first condition carefully, because it cuts both ways. It is not met when somebody knocks on your door uninvited — so in the classic storm door-knock the cancellation right is not displaced by this exclusion. It is capable of being met when you were the one who telephoned, which after a storm is the common case. The second is that three business days is a short window that runs whether or not you have understood the document, this is federal trade regulation rather than roofing or insurance law, and state home-solicitation and home-improvement statutes may set different or longer terms. Whether any of it reaches a particular document is a legal question about that document.
Common belief
I should get the tarp on and the mess cleared before anyone comes, so it looks handled.
What is actually true
Cover what has to be covered to keep water out, and photograph it thoroughly first. Beyond that, clearing is subtraction from the record. Texas’s regulator advises not throwing anything away until the adjuster says so and not making permanent repairs before the adjuster has seen the damage. NRCA warns that puncturing a blister or spreading coating or mastic covers up evidence a contractor needs.
Common belief
The marks are gone now, so there was never anything there.
What is actually true
Some evidence has a shelf life. Spatter marks — the clean patches where hail knocked grime, oxide, algae or microorganisms off a surface — typically linger about a year depending on exposure and climate. Dents in metal do not fade at all. An assessment made two years later is working from a partial record, which is an argument for documenting early, not for assuming nothing happened.
How it actually fails
- The record starts after the first contractor visit
- Every photograph of the roof was taken by someone with a commercial interest in what it shows, on a roof they had already walked. There is no independent baseline, and the footfall question can no longer be separated from the storm question.What you can see: Your own camera roll has nothing dated between the storm and the first visit. Every image you hold came from someone else’s phone.
- The claim is attributed to the wrong storm
- Dating is reconstructed from statements and weather reports weeks or months later. Where two events are close together, the attribution is an argument rather than a fact, and it is the part of a claim most likely to be contested.What you can see: Nobody involved can name a date without hedging. Public storm reports show more than one candidate event near the address.
- The soft-metal evidence is never photographed
- Attention goes to the roof, which cannot be seen from the ground, and away from the gutters, vent hoods and air-conditioning fins, which can. That is the permanent, datable, ground-level evidence and it is the part most often missing from a homeowner’s file.What you can see: The file is full of long-lens shots of shingles and contains no photograph of the AC condenser, the downspouts, or a vent hood.
- Interior damage is documented and the storm is not
- Ceiling stains are photographed because they are indoors and obvious. The exterior evidence that ties them to a weather event is cleaned up in the same week.What you can see: A stain with a date and no corresponding exterior record. Debris, gutter contents and ground evidence already cleared.
- Something is signed at the door and its effect is discovered later
- An inspection authorisation, a contingency agreement and an assignment of benefits look alike on a clipboard in a driveway. NAIC’s guidance is to be cautious about assignments of benefits, which allow a contractor to seek payment directly from the insurer.What you can see: You cannot say what you signed. The copy you were left is a photograph of a signature page rather than a full document.
- The deductible is offered as a discount
- An offer to absorb, waive or rebate the deductible is presented as a favour. In Texas, the state insurance regulator says a state law makes that illegal for contractors and roofers, and advises keeping proof that the deductible was paid. Elsewhere, the rule differs and has to be checked locally.What you can see: A written price that matches the insurance payment exactly, with the deductible quietly absent from the arithmetic.
Sources and further readingSection link
Understanding Roofing / Published
Scope and limitations
- It cannot tell you whether your roof is damaged.
- Functional damage is established by physical evidence on that roof — a fracture on the underside of a shingle, a crease in a tab, a split with or without a coincident dent — and none of that is resolvable from the ground, from a photograph, or from a website.
- It cannot tell you whether your policy responds.
- Coverage, causation, deductible structure, settlement basis, notice duties, any cosmetic-damage exclusion, and the deadlines that apply are set by that policy and by the law of the state it was issued in.
- Nothing here promises a claim outcome.
- It is not legal advice, and it has not been through legal review.
- The federal cancellation rule, the Texas deductible provision, and the description of assignment-of-benefits documents are reported from their sources for orientation only.
- Whether any of them applies to a document in front of you is a question for someone who reads that document and practises in your state.
- It publishes no cost figures.
- Post-storm roofing prices are set by event scale, local labour availability, material lead times and scope, and no defensible national dataset separates a storm repair from ordinary repair or replacement spending.
- It cannot date your storm.
- Public storm reports are point observations, and the Storm Prediction Center marks its daily reports preliminary.
- NOAA's Storm Events Database is a record of reported events, not a measurement at every address.
- Its material coverage is steep-slope.
- Asphalt shingles, wood, slate and tile are the coverings the cited damage-discrimination guidance addresses.
- Residential low-slope membranes fail and are assessed differently, and commercial low-slope assessment uses core cuts, moisture surveys and infrared, which are outside this page.
- It found no source at an appropriate tier quantifying how often shingle blisters, thermal splits or nail pops are mistaken for hail damage.
- Those conditions are named here because their causes are documented as non-impact, not because this page can put a frequency on the confusion.
Learn how to identify hail damage on roof systems
Scott J. Morrison, P.E. (Haag Engineering Co.), Professional Roofing — National Roofing Contractors Association / May 2009
That a roof system is not functionally damaged by hail unless the roof's water-shedding capabilities are diminished or the roof's expected service life is reduced; that many roofing professionals, insurance professionals and homeowners mistakenly assume a roof needs replacement after a hailstorm; that an assessor must be able to recognise the effects of normal ageing and of inherent manufacturing issues as well as of natural perils; that asphalt shingles must be punctured or fractured before they are considered functionally damaged; that impact-caused fractures start on a shingle's underside, the region of maximum tensile strain, and propagate toward the granule surface, so such a fracture is always detectable on the underside and may be felt on top as a localised soft spot called a bruise; that on a shingle in relatively good condition a hailstone able to dislodge granules and expose the coating asphalt fractures the reinforcement and generates a detectable bruise, so missing granules on a sound shingle are accompanied by a fracture; that granule loss begins at manufacture, is normal weathering, and is not functional damage; that shingles losing enough granules to expose the coating bitumen without reinforcement fractures are typically already nearing the end of their service lives; the characteristics distinguishing a hail-caused wood split (along the grain, sizeable coincident dent, sharp-edged, closes when butt corners are pushed together, bright orange interior until weathered) from a weathering split (V-shaped from butt toward head, V-shaped cross-section, weathered grey, cannot be closed); that footfall-caused splits are identical to hail-caused splits except that they do not initiate sizeable surface indentations; that the author's company found more than 30 percent of the finest edge-grain and 65 percent of flat-grain cut wood split naturally from weathering; that near-linear fractures across slate and linear fractures in tile are usually the result of foot traffic while hail produces arcs or multiple fractures radiating from a common impact point; that spatter marks are surface areas where grime, oxide, algae or microorganisms have been cleaned away by hailstone impacts and typically linger about a year depending on exposure and climate, with larger hail leaving larger spatter; that metals are permanent records of all the hailstorms they have endured and that dent width in the aluminium fins of air-conditioning units is typically about 80 percent of the hailstone diameter; that small hailstones are much more common than large ones; and that wind imparts a directional component to hailstones but generally contributes only minorly to their impact forces.
Trade guidance published in 2009 by an engineer at a firm that performs damage assessments, part one of a two-part series covering steep-slope systems only. It is not adopted code, it is not a coverage standard, and it does not bind any insurer or adjuster. Its threshold hail sizes are stated for hard hail, perpendicular impacts, reasonable support and roof systems in relatively good or midlife condition; this page does not reproduce that table.
Misconceptions of Wind Damage to Asphalt Composition Shingles
Carlos R. Lopez, Jonathan S. Goode and Scott R. Morrison, IIBEC Interface — International Institute of Building Enclosure Consultants / Dated 28 December 2017 on the publisher's site
That a sealed-down shingle affected by wind will leave lasting evidence of the event, exhibited as creases, folds, tears, missing shingles or portions of shingles, or a combination; that a shingle which is simply not adhered and is not creased, folded, torn or missing is not evidence of wind-caused damage; that, quoting research by Dixon et al. (2014) at the University of Florida funded through the Southeast Region Research Initiative, shingles appear to remain sealed for the first four to five years of service life, after which the frequency of unsealing trends upward, and that partial unsealing is a systematic failure of the sealant strip rather than a random event; that under-driven nails in the sealant strip and debris in the strip are among the installation causes of unsealing; and that manufacturing inconsistencies, improper installation, ageing, cold-weather installation, contamination of the adhesive and cyclic thermal movement all affect adhesion.
A technical-journal article by consulting engineers, not adopted code and not a coverage standard. It addresses asphalt composition shingles only. The four-to-five-year sealing figure is not IIBEC's own measurement: the article quotes it from Dixon et al. (2014), and this page did not open that underlying study. This page also did not verify the original print issue in which the article appeared, and the organisation's name has changed over the article's life.
Roof Repair After a Hailstorm (consumer document)
National Roofing Contractors Association
That assessing hail damage is accomplished by a roof system inspection which usually occurs several days to several months after the hail event; that determination of whether hail actually fell at a site may be made through statements and weather reports; that inspection of thin aluminium fixtures helps verify hail impact; that hail damage to asphalt shingles includes granule loss, material removal at shingle edges and penetration, and that new asphalt shingles are more resistant to hail impact than older ones because asphalt becomes more brittle with age; that most hail-related damage is cosmetic and will not affect the life of roof shingles, with replacement possibly required in cases of severe wood splitting, significant granule loss, shingle penetration and fracture; that except in extreme situations a homeowner should not attempt roof repairs, because puncturing a blister or spreading coating or mastic covers up evidence a roofing contractor needs, and that roof openings should be temporarily covered with tarpaulins; that a homeowner should gather their policy and call the insurance company as soon as possible after the event to request an assessment; that the insurer must determine whether there is sufficient damage to declare the roof a total loss and what size the roof is; that the homeowner should also call a professional roofing contractor for a similar assessment and may request a reinspection where the adjuster and contractor review the damage together, reinspections being common; that receipts for temporary repairs should be kept because the insurer is likely to reimburse them; and the contractor criteria and warning signs reproduced on this page, including permanent place of business, proof of insurance, written proposal, licensing or bonding, in-state references, and caution over cash-only demands and money before materials are on site.
A consumer advisory from a contractor trade association, undated on its face. It describes a homeowner climbing a ladder to inspect and advises not doing so alone; this page departs from that and tells readers not to climb at all, for the reason given in its own safety callout. Its statement that hail damage is mostly cosmetic is a general observation about hail events, not an assessment of any particular roof, and it is not a coverage determination.
Roof Repair After Strong Winds (consumer document)
National Roofing Contractors Association
That roofs are designed to resist typical wind loads in their locations but no roof system can withstand the most extreme winds; that strong winds can damage a roof system incrementally and that wind's effect over a roof is not uniform, producing negative pressure (suction) or positive pressure depending on wind direction and roof shape and location; that most wind damage begins at the edges of roof systems, that once roofing material loosens suction can raise it and pressure can push it further, and that once the underside is exposed the wind has more to grab, producing a peeling effect in which damage starts small and grows through repeated wind cycles, usually over time; that windblown debris such as glass and tree branches can severely damage a roof and that an assessment should include what blew onto or across the roof; that inspecting roof damage involves climbing a ladder on a potentially unsound, storm-damaged structure; that except in extreme situations a homeowner should not attempt roof repairs because it covers up evidence; and the insurance sequence, reinspection practice and contractor criteria also carried by the hailstorm document.
A consumer advisory from a contractor trade association, undated on its face. It is general guidance, not a diagnostic protocol, and it makes no code or coverage determination. As with the hail document, this page declines its ladder-inspection framing.
Help after a storm
Texas Department of Insurance
The regulator's post-storm consumer sequence: call the insurance company to report damage; take pictures and video of the damage and do not throw anything away until the adjuster says so; make temporary repairs to prevent additional damage and keep a list of repairs with receipts; keep a record of everyone spoken to at the company; make sure the adjuster has a current phone number and a visible address; try to be present when the adjuster visits and point out all damage; do not make permanent repairs before the adjuster has seen the damage; get multiple bids and compare them with the adjuster's report; that a Texas state law makes it illegal for contractors or roofers to offer to waive a deductible or promise a rebate; and to save proof that the deductible was paid.
Consumer guidance from one state's insurance regulator. Its procedural advice is general enough to travel, but the deductible-waiver statement describes Texas law only and this page did not open the underlying statute. It creates no rights under any other state's law and does not describe any particular policy.
Hail damage? Tips to file an insurance claim
Texas Department of Insurance
That the regulator advises filing a claim quickly; taking photos or video and inventorying damage inside and outside; not throwing away damaged items until the insurance company gives permission; preventing further damage by removing standing water and covering broken windows and holes; saving all receipts because a policy may pay for temporary repairs; being available for the adjuster and ensuring the adjuster sees everything; and keeping a list of everyone spoken to at the insurance company.
Consumer guidance from one state's insurance regulator, written for Texas policyholders. It describes no specific policy and makes no coverage determination.
How Can I Avoid Getting Scammed by a Contractor?
National Association of Insurance Commissioners
That the association of state insurance regulators advises filing the insurance claim before hiring anyone, so the insurer verifies what repairs are needed; avoiding contractors who pressure a quick decision or solicit door-to-door; never paying the full amount up front and using instalments paid by cheque or card so there is a record; obtaining the contractor's identification, current business licence, proof of liability insurance verified by calling the insurer, and proof of workers' compensation; requiring a written contract specifying tasks, dates and prices; obtaining estimates from at least three contractors covering identical services; being cautious about signing assignments of benefits, which allow contractors to seek payment directly from insurers; and reporting suspected fraud to the state department of insurance or the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
Consumer education from the association of state insurance commissioners. It is not a regulation, it binds no insurer or contractor, and it does not describe the licensing regime of any particular state.
Part 429 — Rule Concerning Cooling-Off Period for Sales Made at Homes or at Certain Other Locations
U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Code of Federal Regulations (read at govinfo.gov and the Legal Information Institute's CFR text) / Title 16 CFR, 2025 annual edition (revised as of 1 January 2025) — the most recent annual edition published; no 2026 edition of Title 16 volume 1 was available on govinfo on the access date
That the rule reaches a sale, lease or rental of consumer goods or services in which the seller personally solicits the sale — including in response to an invitation by the buyer — and the buyer's agreement or offer is made away from the seller's place of business, at $25 or more where the sale is made at the buyer's residence (and $130 or more where it is made elsewhere); that the required notice states the buyer may cancel the transaction at any time prior to midnight of the third business day after the date of the transaction; and that the definition excludes, among other things, a transaction in which the buyer has initiated the contact AND the goods or services are needed to meet a bona fide immediate personal emergency AND the buyer furnishes the seller with a separate dated and signed personal statement in the buyer's handwriting describing the situation requiring immediate remedy and expressly acknowledging and waiving the right to cancel within three business days — three conditions that must hold together, the first of which is not satisfied by an uninvited door-to-door solicitation.
A federal trade regulation, not a roofing or insurance rule, and not legal advice. Its application to any specific document is a legal question. The eCFR's own page redirected when this page tried to open it, so the text was read in the govinfo XML annual edition and cross-checked against the Legal Information Institute's reproduction; an annual edition is a snapshot, so a reader relying on it should confirm the current text at eCFR. State home-solicitation and home-improvement contract statutes may impose different or longer rights, and this page makes no claim about any of them.
Storm Events Database
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)
That the database documents the occurrence of storms and other significant weather phenomena having sufficient intensity to cause loss of life, injuries, significant property damage or disruption to commerce; that it covers events from January 1950 onward as entered by NOAA's National Weather Service; and that because of changes in data collection and processing procedures over time there are unique periods of record available depending on the event type.
A record of reported events, not a measurement at every address. Absence of an entry near a building is not evidence that nothing happened there, and presence of one is not evidence that anything struck that roof.
Storm Reports
NOAA Storm Prediction Center
That SPC publishes daily tornado, hail and wind reports covering the period from 1200 UTC to 1159 UTC the following day, and states at the head of the listing that all reports are considered preliminary — with individual entries showing times estimated from radar, unknown values, and corrections to previous reports.
Preliminary point reports of what someone observed and reported, not a hazard map and not a measurement of what fell at a given address. Report density also reflects where people are to report.
Fall Protection in Residential Construction
U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration
That falls are the leading cause of death for workers engaged in residential construction, and that workers engaged in residential construction six feet or more above lower levels must be protected by conventional fall protection — guardrail systems, safety net systems, or personal fall arrest systems.
Occupational-safety guidance addressed to employers and workers, not to homeowners. That trained workers use fall protection is a reason for an untrained reader to stay on the ground, not a procedure to imitate.
Severe Weather Safety: After a Thunderstorm
U.S. National Weather Service
That after a severe thunderstorm the public should contact local authorities if they see power lines down, and should stay out of damaged buildings.
General public-safety guidance. It is not a structural assessment method and it does not tell any reader whether a specific building is safe to occupy.
Protect Your Family from Exposures to Asbestos
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
That undamaged asbestos-containing materials should be left alone, that material in good condition which will not be disturbed should be left alone, and that asbestos-containing materials may release fibres when they are disturbed, damaged, removed improperly, repaired, cut, torn, sanded, sawed, drilled or scraped.
General homeowner guidance. It does not identify which roofing products contain asbestos, and no construction date establishes the presence or absence of asbestos in a specific material; only testing by a qualified professional does.