Hail Damage Roof Repair in Houston: A Homeowner's Guide

What Hail Does to an Asphalt Shingle Roof

Hail does not usually punch through a shingle. It bruises it. A hailstone hitting at 60 to 90 miles per hour knocks the protective granules off a round spot and fractures the fiberglass mat underneath. The shingle still sheds water for a while. Then Houston sun works on the exposed mat, the bruise opens into a crack, and the leak appears one or two summers after the storm.

That delay is why hail damage is the most under-claimed roof loss in Texas. The roof looks intact from the ground, there is no leak, and nobody calls. By the time there is a leak, many policies have closed the window for reporting the storm.

Hail also strips granules in a wider pattern across a slope, which shortens the roof's life even where no single bruise is visible. On an older roof that is often the finding: no dramatic hits, but a roof that lost five years of life in one afternoon.

How to Check for Hail Damage From the Ground

You should not go on the roof after a storm. Wet shingles and hidden decking damage put homeowners in the hospital every season. These checks can be done from the yard and tell most of the story:

• Gutters and downspouts. Dents in the soft aluminum are the clearest sign. If the metal is dented, the shingles took the same hits.
• Vent caps, turbines and the AC unit. The same soft metal, the same dents. Fin damage on an outdoor AC condenser is almost diagnostic.
• Window screens, siding and the mailbox. Torn screens and dimpled siding on one side of the house tell you the direction and size of the hail.
• The driveway and patio. Splatter marks, light-colored spots where algae or dirt was knocked off, show how dense the hail was.
• Granules. Piles of granules at the downspout outlets after a storm mean the shingles shed their surface.
• Debris on the lawn: shingle tabs, ridge caps, pieces of flashing. Those point to wind damage on top of hail, which is usually how a May storm in Houston arrives.

The 2024 Storms Still Generating Claims in Northwest Houston

Storm damage claims are tied to a date. The adjuster will ask which event caused the damage, and the policy sets the deadline for reporting it. Three events from 2024 are still producing claims across Cypress, Katy, Spring and The Woodlands:

• May 16, 2024 derecho. Straight-line winds near 100 mph crossed the metro, blew out windows downtown and caused more than a billion dollars in damage. On roofs it lifted shingle tabs, tore off ridge caps and stripped exposed west- and north-facing slopes in Katy and Cypress.
• May 28, 2024 hailstorm. Twelve days later, quarter- to golf-ball-sized hail fell across Cy-Fair and West Houston. This is the event behind most of the hail bruising we still find on Cypress and Katy roofs, and claims from it were being filed well into 2025.
• July 8, 2024, Hurricane Beryl. A Category 1 at landfall that tracked across the metro with hurricane-force gusts. Lifted and creased shingles on windward slopes, and falling limbs through decking under the pine canopy in Spring and The Woodlands.

Repair or Replace? How the Decision Is Made

Both adjusters and roofers use a test square: a 10-by-10-foot area marked on each slope. If a square shows roughly eight or more hail hits, that slope is generally considered a total loss. A hit on one slope with the rest clean is a repair. Hits across most slopes is a replacement, and after a storm like May 28 that is the more common finding, because hail does not choose slopes.

Age changes the math. On a roof that is 15 or more years old, replacing one slope leaves you with new shingles that will not match and a roof that still has four old slopes. Most Texas policies have no matching clause, so the carrier can pay for the one slope. Where the shingle line has been discontinued, a supplement with the manufacturer's discontinuation notice sometimes changes that outcome.

Our inspection gives you the slope-by-slope count and the photos either way. The repair-or-replace call should be made on that evidence, by you, not by whoever is standing in your driveway with a clipboard.

What Hail Damage Roof Repair Costs in Houston

A hail repair limited to a slope or two, with some flashing and a vent or two replaced, typically runs $300 to $3,500 in the Houston area. A full replacement with architectural asphalt shingles runs about $4.50 to $8.50 per square foot installed, which puts most Cypress, Katy and Spring homes between $12,000 and $25,000. Class 4 impact-resistant shingles add roughly $1 to $2 per square foot.

On an approved claim, your cost is the deductible, usually 1 to 2 percent of your dwelling coverage, so $4,000 to $8,000 on a $400,000 policy. Texas law prohibits any contractor from paying, waiving or rebating that deductible. The one who offers to is telling you how the rest of the job will go.

What a Texas Homeowners Policy Actually Pays for Hail

Hail is a covered peril on nearly every Texas policy. The questions are how much it pays and by when you have to ask. Four clauses decide it:

• Replacement cost vs. actual cash value. Many carriers now move roofs past 10 to 15 years to ACV, which subtracts depreciation. Some use a roof payment schedule that pays as little as 40 percent on a 20-year-old roof. Read the roof endorsement on your declarations page.
• Reporting window. Most policies require hail and wind damage to be reported within one year of the storm date, not the date you found the leak.
• Cosmetic exclusion. Dents in metal that do not affect function can be excluded. Bruised shingle mats are functional damage and are covered.
• Deductible. Separate wind-and-hail deductibles of 1 to 2 percent are now standard in Harris, Fort Bend and Montgomery counties.

What to Do in the First Week After Hail

The order matters, because the file you build in the first week is what the claim is settled on.

• Photograph everything from the ground, dated: dents, debris, granules, interior stains if any.
• Get a free roof inspection with a written, photographed slope-by-slope count before you call the carrier. Filing with a documented scope gets a fuller settlement than filing blind.
• Tarp active leaks. Your policy covers reasonable steps to prevent further damage; keep the receipt.
• File the claim with the storm date, and ask for the adjuster meeting to be scheduled with your roofer present.
• Ignore the door-knockers. Out-of-town crews follow hail into Cypress and Katy every year; a deductible waiver is illegal and a sign to walk away.

Hail Claims We Have Completed in Cypress and Katy

The three jobs below are typical of what a hail-and-wind claim looks like from tarp to finished roof in our home market. Each page has the photos. Barker Grove Ln and Dakota Hill Ct in Cypress went from an emergency tarp to a full replacement paid at the approved scope; Peach Knoll Ln in Katy started as a temporary repair and ended as a full replacement once the adjuster saw the slope count.

Frequently Asked Questions