You can’t control the weather, but you can control other critical factors that keep your organization’s roof protected from hail damage. This includes things like regular inspections, cleaning, materials, and your preferred roofing contractor. Whether you have a commercial flat roof or an architectural shingled roof, these tips can help keep your roof protected during hail season.
Protect Against Roof Hail Damage
While most types of damage don’t happen overnight, commercial roof hail damage usually does. With springtime as peak hail season in Atlanta, you may be wondering what you can do to proactively protect your commercial roof from hail damage. You may not be able to stop the hail, but you can start prioritizing your roof’s integrity with preventative maintenance and an understanding of the insurance and inspection process:
Stay on Top of Roof Maintenance
Sometimes, a severe hailstorm can pass through and damage an otherwise well-maintained commercial roofing system. It happens, but more often than not, we encounter instances where hail storms pass through and make existing roofing issues even worse. Since commercial buildings tend to lift higher than their residential counterparts, it is crucial to keep up consistent preventative maintenance.
Keep Your Roof and Gutters Clean
As with roof maintenance, keeping your roof and gutters clean won’t necessarily prevent hail damage, but it can protect your roof when hail strikes. Although these are things that we normally think about in residential care, it is just as important with your commercial buildings.
Excess debris on a roof’s surface can weaken the underlying infrastructure, increasing the amount of hail damage that occurs during a storm. At the same time, weak or overflowing gutters can become overburdened by the weight of hailstones when a storm strikes, causing them to pull away from your building.
Choosing Materials
Rubber roofing offers an excellent option for commercial roofing systems that need to protect against hail damage because the material absorbs and disperses the force of the impact. Since commercial buildings face a lot of harsh outside conditions, doing research on materials for roofing is essential to the longevity of your roof.
While you save money on cheaper materials in the short run, you may ultimately end up paying more in the event of storm damage. Additionally, having poor materials for your roof gives insurance a way to attribute less of your claim to natural causes, leaving you with less money to do the repairs you need most.
Partner With the Right People
While choosing the right roofing materials can protect your commercial or residential building from hail damage, who installs those materials is just as important. That’s because we’ve witnessed instances when the materials themselves didn’t fail during a hailstorm—instead, the craftsmanship did.
Partnering with a reliable roofing contractor that stands by the quality of their work ensures that the quality of the installation matches or exceeds that of the materials. The best way to gauge the quality of a roofing contractor’s work is by taking a look at the installation warranty they offer.
Contractors that place more emphasis on the manufacturer’s warranty than their own installation warranty generally don’t focus on quality installation.
Contractors that place more emphasis on the manufacturer’s warranty than their own installation warranty generally don’t focus on quality installation.
Sign Up for a Storm Watch Program
Some roofing contractors offer free hail damage roof inspection programs. While these programs aren’t intended to prevent hail damage, an immediate hail damage inspection following any significant storm can help reduce the extent of the damage and save you trouble in the long run.
At New Image Roofing Atlanta, we offer a free Storm Watch Program. Following any major storm in your area, we send out an expert inspector to assess for roof hail damage. Even if we don’t find any damage, you can enjoy peace of mind knowing your roof is in good shape. If, however, we detect signs of damage, you get a head start on repairs while we streamline the roof insurance claims process.
Inspecting Your Roof and Insurance Claims
Fortunately, the telltale signs of hail damage to a commercial roof are relatively obvious. Following a hailstorm, you may see:
- Dented or damaged metal flashing around the border of the roof
- Round, pitted spots where hail hit the roof
- Excessive granules in downspouts and gutters
- Damaged, cracked, or bruised shingles
In order to put the most money back in your pocket when disaster strikes, call New Image Roofing Atlanta right away to minimize the extent of the damage and simplify the insurance claims process. Insurance with commercial buildings can sometimes be tricky, as they can find ways to attribute damage to your building other than hail.
