Giant Ice and My Own Roof
Ice is great in a drink, but not so good pounding on a roof.
I recently read about giant hail striking close to San Antonio, Texas. At 6.4 inches, apparently it could break a Texas record, but isn’t the largest hail known to have pelted the planet. Luckily, most hail isn’t that big, though it can certainly cause damage. Hail results in billions of dollars of damage annually, and a roof is a common victim. While Texas seems to be the annual leader in hail damage in every report I read, Missouri (where I live) came up 4th in 2020 for roof and auto hail claims paid by State Farm. The report explains that the company paid $3.1 Billion in 2020 overall for these claims and $236.9 Million in Missouri alone (Insurance Journal 2020, State Farm 2020).
My husband and I have experienced hail damage to many-a-roof. Once we were under contract to buy a house and luckily the seller’s insurance had to pay for the new roof. Other times our insurance has covered the replacement or repair.
But what happens later if there is only slight damage to a roof from a non-hail event? Or if the roofing material becomes weak in only one spot, maybe around a vent? Or what if you renovate your home and change a roof line or need to patch the roof?
This happened to us recently and we could not find the brand, style-name, and color of the roofing material we had used. When you look up at your roof, suddenly the brand and color really matter! You can’t just patch in something that doesn’t match without having it look, well ... patched. And no one wants to spend money for a whole new roof when you just need a small area of new shingles. Ugh. Frustration!
In our case, someone had to climb up on the roof, take photos, climb down, and research which brand, color, and style they thought was correct, bring in samples (three were very close) ... you get the picture. It took weeks to solve the mystery.
Lesson learned! It would have been so much easier and less time consuming and expensive if we had written down the brand, style, and color in one easy-to-find place, like Read This...® About My House (which didn’t exist at the time we originally installed the roof).
Believe me, we have written it down now!
PS - Do this with gutters, too! And stucco style and color. And paint chips. And fencing!
Check out this link to get your own copy!
https://www.booksbyace.com/book-store/p/read-this-about-my-house