After a hailstorm, most St. Louis homeowners do the same thing. They walk out to the driveway, look up, decide the roof looks fine, and move on. That instinct is reasonable and it is also why so much storm damage in this metro goes unclaimed.
Hail rarely punches a hole in a roof. It damages the layers that keep the roof alive. Here is what to look for.
1. Granules collecting at your downspouts
Granules are the coarse mineral surface on your shingles. They are the wearing layer and they block ultraviolet rays from reaching the asphalt underneath. Hail knocks them loose, and they wash into the gutters and pile up where the downspout empties. It looks like coarse dark sand. It is the single easiest storm clue to spot from the ground.
2. Dark circular spots on the shingle surface
Where a stone strikes, granules are removed and a slight depression is left behind. From up close it reads as a random scatter of dark dots, different from the broad uneven fading of normal aging. Hail damage is round, random, and localized. Weathering is not.
3. Bruising you can feel but not see
This is the important one. A hail strike compresses the top of the shingle and stretches the bottom, and the bottom can fracture. If the fracture does not go all the way through, it is called a bruise. The surface can still look intact. Press it and it feels soft, like a bruised apple. A bruised shingle has lost structural integrity and will fail earlier than the shingles around it.
4. Exposed fiberglass mat
Where the granules and asphalt have been knocked away entirely, the black mat underneath is exposed. That mat was never designed to see sunlight. It degrades fast once it does.
5. Dented metal
Check gutters, downspouts, drip edge, vents, pipe collars, and the fins on your air conditioner. Metal holds a dent, which makes it the most honest record of what fell on your property. If your gutters are dented, your roof was hit.
6. Shingles that are no longer sealed down
Every shingle is bonded to the one below it by a factory sealant strip. Impact can break that bond without breaking the shingle. Once it is loose, wind gets underneath it, and the next storm does damage that this one only set up.
What to do with what you find
Photograph everything from the ground, note the date of the storm, and get a documented inspection before you call your insurance company. Knowing whether you have functional damage or ordinary weathering is worth doing before you open a claim, not after.
Anvil Roofing Co inspects roofs across the St. Louis metro and provides a written report at no cost, whether or not there is a claim.