How the roof gets inspected, step by step

Why this is published at all

Most roofing companies do not publish their inspection process, which means a homeowner comparing two “free inspections” has no way to tell whether one of them is a proper assessment and the other is someone glancing at the roof from the driveway.

Writing it down fixes that, and it also fixes something for us: it is a commitment we make on the partner's behalf. If an inspection skips a step described here, that is a failure you can point at, and one we want to hear about.

One thing this page is not: a claim about how many roofs anyone has inspected. This is a new company and it is a referral service, not a roofer. What follows is the process the inspection follows, not a history of past work. That distinction matters and we are not going to blur it.

Before the inspector arrives

What you send through the form — the address, what you have noticed, and any storm date you know — goes to the roofing partner before they come out. If you have interior damage such as ceiling stains or damp in the attic, access is confirmed in advance, because that is the part that needs you home.

You will be told when they are coming. Nobody turns up unannounced, and nobody knocks on doors after a storm.

Step 1: the ground-level circuit

Before anyone goes up, the inspector walks the perimeter. This part matters more than it sounds, because the strongest corroborating evidence in a hail claim is usually at eye level.

• Soft metals. Gutters, downspouts, roof vents and turbines, the fins on the air-conditioning condenser, the mailbox, fence caps. Soft metals do not deteriorate into dents. If they are dented, hail hit this property, and that is much harder to attribute to wear than anything on the shingles.
• Window screens. Tears and dimpling, easily overlooked and good evidence.
• Granule accumulation. At downspout outlets and in the gutters.
• Debris on the ground. Shingle pieces, granules, anything that came off the roof.
• Collateral damage. Siding, garage door, patio furniture, fencing.
• Roof geometry from the ground. Number of planes, pitch, elevations and which direction each faces.

All of it photographed and dated.

Step 2: on the roof, slope by slope

Someone gets on the roof. If the roof cannot be safely walked — very steep pitch, a fragile covering, wet or icy conditions — you are told that, and it is inspected differently rather than reported as though it had been walked.

Each slope is worked separately and recorded separately:

• Overall condition photographs of the slope, so nothing is unaccounted for.
• A hands-on check for bruising. Hail bruising frequently does not break the surface and is easier to feel than to see. This is the single thing an aerial inspection cannot do, and it is the damage most often missed.
• Granule loss assessment. Where the mat is exposed and how widely.
• Fractured mats. Cracks, particularly ones radiating from a point of impact.
• A hands-on seal check. Lifting tabs to find shingles whose sealant strip has been broken by wind. These drop back into place looking untouched, and they will lift again in the next storm.
• Creasing. The mark left where a shingle was lifted and folded back. The mat fractures along the fold and does not recover.
• Damage pattern and directionality. Random and scattered reads as impact; uniform and geometric reads as wear. Concentration on the elevations facing the storm is corroborating.
• Close-ups with scale where the size of an impact matters.

Step 3: penetrations, flashing and edges

Leaks usually start here rather than in the field of the shingles, and these are also the items an insurer's scope of loss most often omits — which is what turns into a supplement later.

• Chimney and wall flashing, step and counter flashing
• Valleys and their treatment
• Pipe boots, which fail long before shingles do
• Vents, turbines and skylights
• Ridge and hip covering
• Drip edge at eave and rake
• Gutters, downspouts and their attachment

Condition is recorded whether or not it is storm-related, because a city requirement can make an item mandatory on a re-roof regardless of what caused its condition. Denton, for example, requires damaged, rusted or deteriorated roof vents and flashing to be replaced. Recording condition up front is what makes that a documented item rather than a surprise after the tear-off.

Step 4: ventilation and the attic

Where the attic is accessible, the inspector looks at it. Two reasons.

Interior evidence dates damage. Daylight through the decking, staining, damp on the underside of the sheathing — these corroborate what is visible on the surface, and sometimes contradict it.

Ventilation drives aging. Intake and exhaust ventilation is what keeps a roof from cooking itself from underneath. An under-ventilated roof ages faster, and that accelerated aging is precisely what an insurer points at when concluding that damage is wear rather than an event. It is worth knowing about before anyone else raises it.

Step 5: the written report

This is the deliverable. Everything above exists to produce it.

• Photographs organized by slope, dated, with coverage of every elevation.
• Close-ups of each specific defect, legible, with scale where relevant.
• The inspection date, and the storm date where known.
• Condition notes on flashing, penetrations, ventilation and decking where visible.
• Corroborating damage photographed elsewhere on the property.
• A plain-English summary. What was found, what it means, and what your realistic options are — readable by someone who does not work in roofing.

You keep it. Regardless of whether you hire the contractor, regardless of whether anything was found, and you are free to show it to another contractor or to your adjuster. A report you are not allowed to keep is a sales tool, not a report.

If there is no damage, the report says there is no damage. That is a useful document: dated evidence of your roof's condition, which matters because TDI notes that insurers may switch a policy to actual cash value as a roof ages and that a roof in poor condition might not be covered at all.

The limits of what an inspection can tell you

Being straight about this is part of the methodology, not a disclaimer bolted onto it.

• An inspection cannot see under the shingles. Decking condition is genuinely unknown until the tear-off. That is why estimates carry a decking allowance and why decking is the most common supplement on a claim.
• Nobody can tell you what your insurer will decide. The inspection documents; the insurer decides.
• Damage cannot always be dated precisely. A report can describe patterns consistent or inconsistent with a given event, which is a different and more honest claim.
• What cannot be safely reached cannot be inspected. If a slope cannot be walked, the report will say so rather than imply otherwise.
• Nobody here can interpret your policy for you. Texas Roofing Now is a referral service and the partner is a roofing contractor — neither is an insurance company, public adjuster or law firm. Our disclosure page sets that boundary out in full.

What happens after

You get the report and you decide. If there is no damage, that is the end of it and there will be no follow-up sales calls, because we do not have a phone room to make them from. If there is damage, this site explains how the Texas claim process works and what your deductible means for whether filing is worth it. If you file, the roofing partner can meet your adjuster on site and walk them through what the inspection found.