The storm has passed, ice is melting in the gutters, and from the driveway your Salt Lake City roof looks fine. No leak, no shingles in the yard. That is exactly when a careful hail damage roof inspection matters, because hail can bruise matting and knock granules loose while the ceiling stays dry. Spring storms along the Wasatch Front also leave marks that high-altitude sun bakes into bigger problems by July. Some hits are cosmetic. Some shorten the roof's life. Photograph and map what you find before any tarp, sealant, or claim decision.
Know When It Is Safe to Climb
You don't need to be on the roof within the hour. A wet, hot, or windy roof is a bad inspection platform and a fall risk. Wait until the surface is fully dry, the wind is calm, and you're outside the afternoon thunderstorm window that builds along the Wasatch Front in late spring.
Go and No Go Conditions
Skip the climb if shingles are slick, if gusts push you off balance, or if heat makes asphalt soft enough to scuff under your shoes. Steep pitches need fall protection, not confidence. Clay and concrete tile are fragile underfoot. Leave those roofs to a qualified crew who knows where to step.
Power lines near the eave and loose, bent gutters are also stop signs. A gutter that moved in the storm won't hold a ladder safely. If anything looks unstable, stay on the ground and use binoculars or a drone.
Ladder Setup and Ground Kit
Set the ladder on a level base. Extend it about 3 feet above the eave so you can step off with a handhold. Keep three points of contact, and put a second person at the base.
Bring what you'll really use:
- Binoculars: Scan ridges, vents, and far slopes before you climb.
- Flashlight: Check eaves and the attic later the same day.
- Tape measure or coin: Give every close photo a scale reference.
- Chalk marker: Mark confirmed hits without damaging the surface.
- Phone with timestamps on: Date your photos as you take them.
Practical rule: If you can't inspect it safely, photograph it from the ground and note it as inaccessible. A gap in the report is better than a fall.
Most ground level work, soft metal checks, perimeter photos, and slope overviews, can be done without stepping on the roof at all.
Ground Checks That Reveal Hail Hits
Soft metal tells the truth first. Aluminum gutters, downspouts, vents, drip edges, and fascia dent and lose coating right at the impact point. Asphalt shingles hide the same hit under granules. That's why a hail damage roof inspection starts at ground level, not on the ladder.
Walk the perimeter in the same order every time. Start with gutters and downspouts. Move to window screens and vent covers, then fascia and soffit, then the AC condenser fins. Finish with vehicles and patio furniture as a rough reference for hail size and direction.
Reading the Pattern
Look for clustering. Dents concentrated on the windward side, often the south or west face in a Salt Lake City spring storm, suggest hail direction and which roof slopes took the worst of it. Dents spread evenly on every side, or only at ladder height, point to something else.
Compare neighboring homes on the same street. Hail swaths are narrow. One side of a street can take repeated hits while the other side shows almost nothing. That comparison doesn't prove your roof is damaged, but it helps you judge whether the pattern at your house fits the storm.
Ground indicators and what they mean
| Ground indicator | What hail leaves behind | False alarm to rule out |
|---|---|---|
| Aluminum gutters and downspouts | Round dents, fresh metal showing through paint | Seam crimps and install dents |
| Window screens and vent covers | Punctures, bent mesh, dented louvers | Torn screens from pets or wind-blown debris |
| Fascia and soffit | Dimpled aluminum, chipped paint on the windward side | Old rot or sun-faded paint on all sides equally |
| AC condenser fins | Bent fins in a scattered pattern | Fins bent by mowers or branches at ground height |
| Vehicles and patio furniture | Pitting and dimpling on hoods, lids and metal tables | Scratches and dents from everyday use |
Ignore factory seams and crimps. They run in straight lines. Hail doesn't. Ignore a single dent where a ladder always rests, or a crease at mower height on a downspout.
Photograph each indicator before you touch anything. Get one wide shot showing where it sits on the house, and one close shot with a coin for scale. Note the compass direction. Those ground photos become your collateral evidence later. They help show hail reached the property, which side it came from, and whether the roof findings match.
If soft metals on one elevation are clean and the opposite elevation is dimpled, expect the roof counts to differ by slope too. Don't average them away.
How to Test Each Roof Slope
Three dented shingles on the south face make a story, not a count. Adjusters pay on counts. Take the sample before any tarp goes up or any sealant gets smeared on a suspect spot, because temporary repairs cover exactly the area an adjuster wants to see. The visual below summarizes the sequence.
Work through the roof in this order:
- Photograph the house and roof from the street and yard. Note the date and any weather record you have. This anchors every later photo to the storm.
- Sketch the roof and label each slope by compass direction. North, south, east, and west counts will differ. The sketch keeps them separate.
- Record covering type, approximate age, layers, penetrations, flashings, and collateral damage. Age and material change how you judge a hit.
- Mark a representative 10-by-10-foot test area on every slope. That's 100 square feet. Avoid spots shielded by trees or walls and avoid high traffic paths near ladders and vents, because shielding and foot traffic distort the pattern.
- Examine each test area by sight and touch. Look and feel for functional bruises, punctures, fractures, or displaced material. A bruise often feels soft before it looks broken.
- Mark confirmed impacts with chalk and count them. Photograph the square with the marks and a tape measure in frame.
- Inspect valleys, ridges, eaves, rakes, and penetrations separately. They have less support underneath, so they can take damage more easily than the field of the slope.
- Repeat test areas wherever covering type or age changes. A newer addition and an older main roof aren't the same sample.
This slope by slope method with 100-square-foot test areas follows NRCA guidance on establishing representative test areas on every directional slope, which also calls for additional areas wherever covering type or age changes. On a sprawling roof, add extra squares rather than stretching one sample thin.
Here the local catch. Spring hail in the Salt Lake Valley lands on shingles already baked by high-altitude sun. UV-aged shingles shed granules and crack at the edges on their own, so a bare-looking circle is often weathering, not a functional hit. Press each mark with your thumb. A true hail bruise gives slightly because the mat underneath fractured. Cosmetic granule loss sits on a hard, intact shingle.
The Most Common Slip
Counting every round blemish as hail is the fastest way to lose credibility. Blistering, mechanical wear, manufacturing defects, installation problems, and foot damage can all leave circular marks. A reliable count separates those defects from confirmed impacts.
Don't extrapolate one test square across the whole roof. Report counts by slope, by material, and by age. One whole roof total hides the pattern an adjuster needs to see.
Watch the walkthrough below for how the slope work looks in practice, then compare it with your own sketch and counts.
If a slope is too steep or fragile to walk, say so on the sketch. Mark it inaccessible and photograph it from the ground or with a drone. Don't guess a count you didn't take. A smaller, honest sample beats a complete looking report built on assumed hits.
What to Look for in the Attic
A roof can be functionally damaged with no leak showing at all. The attic won't prove hail damage by itself, and a dry attic doesn't clear the roof. It answers two narrower questions. Has water entered? Has the decking been compromised?
The photo below shows the kind of staining you're looking for on the underside of the deck.
Bring a flashlight and work slope by slope, matching attic bays to the test areas above them. Pay closest attention below ridges, valleys, and vent penetrations, where water entry shows first.
What Counts as Evidence
- Dark staining or rings on decking: Note whether the stain looks fresh or old and dry.
- Damp or compressed insulation: Feel for moisture and look for matted sections below a suspect slope.
- Rusted nail tips: Rust suggests repeated moisture, not always a single storm.
- Daylight at fasteners or penetrations: Light where it shouldn't be means an opening, whatever caused it.
Don't infer leakage from hail marks alone. Pre-existing flashing defects and poor ventilation cause attic moisture without any hail involved, a distinction covered in NRCA material on inspecting attic decking and insulation after hail. The attic supports the roof findings. It doesn't replace them.
Check ceilings and upper wall corners below the inspected slopes too. Look for new stains, soft drywall, or blistering paint. Utah's dry air hides moisture well. A spring storm can push water through a bruised shingle that stayed dry all winter, so a stain that appears days later still belongs in your notes.
Record the location, approximate size, a moisture reading if you have a meter, and a timestamped photo for each finding. Note every bay you couldn't reach. An adjuster who sees inaccessible written plainly will trust the rest of the report more.
Telling Hail Damage From Normal Wear
A dent isn't automatically a failure. That's the myth that drives bad decisions after a storm. Some impacts are cosmetic. The roof still sheds water and keeps its service life. Others are functional. The protective layer is broken, and the clock starts on leaks and accelerated aging.
Metal shows this split clearly. Dents may be mostly cosmetic unless seams, protective coatings, fasteners, or flashing are compromised, while asphalt granule loss can cut UV protection and shorten service life even when shingles look intact from the ground. That distinction between cosmetic impact and functional damage is central to guidance on separating repairable damage from replacement level damage.
Hail signs by roofing material
| Roofing material | Typical hail sign | Cosmetic or functional? |
|---|---|---|
| Asphalt shingles | Bruised mat, exposed fiberglass, clumped granules in gutters | Functional when the mat cracks or granules are gone to the asphalt |
| Metal panels | Round dents, cracked paint or coating, open seams | Usually cosmetic unless the coating fractures or fasteners and seams are compromised |
| Clay or concrete tile | Cracked or chipped tiles, displaced pieces | Functional when cracked through or the underlayment is exposed |
| Built-up or modified bitumen | Punctures, blistering with cracks, exposed felt | Functional with any puncture or exposed felt |
| Wood shake | Split or fractured shakes | Functional when the split runs through the full shake thickness |
The Utah UV Problem
Salt Lake City's high altitude UV and wide summer temperature swings punish exposed asphalt. Once hail knocks granules off, the black asphalt underneath heats, dries, and cracks faster than it would at lower elevation. A bruise that looks minor in April can become a brittle, split shingle by late summer.
Use the shaded side as your control. Compare granule loss on the sun exposed slope with a slope protected by trees or a taller wall. If loss is heavy only where hail hit and light where the roof was shielded, that's a storm pattern. If it's uniform everywhere, you're probably looking at age.
Field test: Press a suspect spot gently with your thumb. A hail bruise in the mat feels soft and spongy. Age worn granule loss over a sound mat feels firm.
Blistering fools a lot of homeowners. Blisters pop and leave round craters that look like hits, but they cluster in hot areas and don't match dents in soft metals. Foot traffic leaves scuffs in walking paths. Manufacturing defects repeat in patterns. None of those should go in a hail count.
Mixed age roofs need separate judgments. Don't apply the old slope's verdict to the new addition. Identify the roof system first, then judge it by that material's failure signs. An asphalt protocol doesn't fit tile, metal, or built-up roofing.
How to Document Damage for Your Insurance Claim
Salt Lake City's spring hail season compresses the timeline. Cells roll through in April and May, adjusters book out for weeks, and the same high-altitude sun that cooks a bruised shingle changes what that bruise looks like before anyone official sees it. Build the record before you fix anything. That order protects the claim.
The urgency is practical. After a widespread storm, adjusters work through heavy claim volume, and the files that move are the ones with dates, scale references, and slope-by-slope coverage. A clean file gets read. A shoebox of blurry close-ups gets questions.
The image below shows the basic close-up setup. Phone in one hand, coin in frame for scale.
Documentation Workflow
- Record the storm date and local event evidence. Find the storm record for your address and save it with your photos. Timing connects defects to an event.
- Photograph ground indicators first. Gutters, vents, screens, and fascia, each with a scale reference beside the dent. These shots are easiest to take and hardest to recreate later.
- Photograph each slope from the ground, then each test area. Keep chalk marks and a tape measure in frame so counts can be verified.
- Take close ups of confirmed impacts with a coin for scale. One impact per frame. Blurry group shots don't hold up.
- Photograph attic and interior ceilings with timestamps. Include clean areas too, so the file shows what you checked.
- Keep an undamaged reference photo from each slope. Note every area you couldn't reach. Controls make the damaged shots more believable.
- Store originals with metadata intact and write a one page summary. List slope, material, count, and location. Back the files up in two places.
Metadata matters. Leave it alone.
Don't edit, crop, or delete the bad takes from the original set. Send the full set rather than a curated selection of the worst hits. An adjuster who sees damaged and undamaged areas, shielded and exposed slopes, gets the whole pattern. A folder of only close-ups invites doubt, because nothing in it proves the hits came from this storm on this roof.
Many homeowners hand this step to a contractor. Superior Home Improvement, for example, offers a free professional roof inspection after storm damage and documents findings with photographs for insurance discussions. Whether you use a crew or do it yourself, the standard is the same. Dated, scaled, slope by slope, and complete before repairs.
Keep invoices for any temporary work with the photo file. If you pay for tarping or emergency sealing, that receipt is part of the claim record.
Choose Your Next Step After the Inspection
A temporary fix protects the house. Done wrong, it destroys the evidence you just built. The sequence matters more than the speed.
Five moves, in order. First, photograph and log everything using the workflow above. Second, tarp any torn opening, anchored to battens so the fasteners stay out of the shingles. Third, clear gutters and downspouts so water can't back up under the eave. Fourth, leave hail-cracked material alone until the adjuster has seen it, since reseated shingles and smeared sealant erase the impact pattern. Fifth, book the certified inspection and get the written report.
In Salt Lake's spring hail season, certified crews book out within days of a big cell. Get on the schedule while the tarp is holding. Sun at this elevation works exposed underlayment hard, so check that cover again after the next wind.
When to Call a Certified Roofer
Call a certified crew when functional damage shows on more than one slope, when underlayment or decking is exposed, when flashing around penetrations is damaged, when water has reached the attic, or when the roof mixes ages or materials. A qualified roofer can rerun the test square count by slope and write the kind of report an adjuster can use. That report gives the adjuster a scope to verify. A doorstep opinion gives them nothing.
Post-storm action timeline
| When | Action | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Days 0-2 | Photograph ground indicators, attic, and interior ceilings | Evidence changes quickly with weather and handling |
| Days 1-3 | Install a temporary cover on any opening | Limits water entry without damaging the shingles |
| Within 7 days | Book a certified inspection and get a written report | Gives the adjuster a dated, professional record |
| Before any permanent repair | Keep the full photo set and report | Repairs without documentation weaken the claim |
| Policy deadline | Report the claim within your policy's reporting window | Check the exact window in your policy, since terms vary |
Deadlines differ by policy. Confirm yours in writing with your insurer or agent. A neighbor's policy or a contractor's memory won't tell you yours.
Your concrete next step is simple. Send the full photo set and the slope-by-slope count to your insurer inside the reporting window, keep every invoice for temporary work, and hold permanent repairs until the scope is approved. A hail damage roof inspection handled in that order gives you a dry house now and a defensible claim later.
If your test squares show functional hits on more than one slope, or you can't safely reach a steep or tile roof, keep the same order: photograph and log first, tarp any open tear so the house stays dry, then book the documented inspection. Superior Home Improvement provides free professional roof inspections after storm damage in the Salt Lake City area, with photo documentation you can send straight to your insurer. Visit Superior Home Improvement to schedule yours and get a clear, written record of what the hail did.
