Hail
How to Tell If Your Littleton Roof Has Hail Damage
Hail rarely punches holes in a roof. It bruises the mat under the granules, which means your roof can look perfect from the driveway and still have lost most of its remaining life.
Every summer we get calls from people in Littleton, Centennial and Highlands Ranch who looked at their roof after a storm, saw nothing obviously wrong, and assumed they were fine. Some of them were. Some of them had a roof that had already lost most of its remaining service life.
What hail actually does
Hail bruises the asphalt mat underneath the granule surface. The shingle keeps its shape, so the roof looks intact, but the bruised area has lost its waterproofing integrity. Two freeze-thaw seasons later the bruise opens up and the roof starts leaking, long after the storm that caused it.
Think of it like a bruise on fruit. The skin is unbroken. The flesh underneath is damaged and will fail from the inside out.
This delayed failure is why insurers assess hail claims on impact density rather than on visible leaks, and it is why "my roof is not leaking" is not evidence that your roof is undamaged.
Why the Front Range is a special case
The Colorado Front Range records the highest frequency of large hail in North America. Hail season runs roughly mid-April to mid-September.
Littleton's building code reflects that environment. The city's adopted design criteria of 40 psf, non-reducible ground snow load and 136 mph ultimate design wind speed, the ASTM D7158 Class H requirement, and the six-nail minimum all exist because roofs here take punishment that roofs elsewhere do not.
What you can check from the ground
1. Granules in the gutters
The most accessible indicator. Check gutters and the ground below downspout outlets for accumulated granules that look like coarse dark sand.
Some granule loss is normal, particularly on a new roof shedding loose material. A sudden accumulation after a storm, on a roof that is a few years old, is not.
2. Dents in soft metals
This is the single most useful thing a homeowner can check, and it is the evidence that matters most on a claim.
Look at aluminum and thin steel components at eye level or visible from the ground: gutter faces, downspouts, gutter aprons, vent hoods, the metal housing of a swamp cooler, window wraps.
Aluminum does not dent with age. If the soft metals are peppered, hail hit this house hard enough to matter. If they are completely clean after a storm you think was significant, be sceptical of anyone telling you your roof is destroyed.
3. Other surfaces around the property
Hail does not only hit the roof. Check:
- Air conditioning condenser fins, which bend easily and hold the evidence
- Deck boards and painted wood surfaces
- Garage doors and mailboxes
- Grills, patio furniture, plastic garden items
- Car bodywork, if anything was parked outside
These give you a read on the intensity and the direction the hail was driven from, which tells you which slopes to be most concerned about.
4. Shingles or debris in the yard
Less common with hail than with wind, but worth noting. Also check neighbors' yards downwind.
What only shows on the roof
These require getting up there, which is why an inspection is worth having rather than a thing to attempt yourself.
- Bruising in the field. Circular marks, often with granules displaced at the center, that feel soft when pressed. This is the damage that decides a claim.
- Impact density in test squares. Adjusters assess how many impacts appear in a measured area on each slope. Distribution matters as much as count.
- Ridge and hip cap damage. Exposed on two faces, so they take disproportionate damage.
- Cracked or split shingles, particularly on older brittle roofs.
- Damaged pipe boots and skylight domes.
Why you should not climb up
Beyond the obvious fall risk, walking the roof to investigate does damage:
- Walking a hot asphalt roof scuffs granules off, which is the exact damage you are looking for.
- Walking a cold asphalt roof cracks shingles.
- Hail-damaged shingles are more fragile than sound ones, so you do the most damage where the damage already is.
People routinely create the appearance of hail damage, or destroy the evidence of it, by inspecting their own roof.
What a proper inspection produces
Whoever you have look at it, what you should receive is:
- Photographs of every slope, labelled by orientation
- Test square documentation with impact counts
- Close photographs of soft metal evidence
- Photographs of areas that are sound, not only damaged areas
- A written assessment you keep regardless of who does the work
That last point about undamaged areas matters more than it sounds. A report that shows only damage reads as advocacy. A report that shows the whole roof reads as evidence, and adjusters respond to the difference.
The post-storm door knock
After a significant hail event, crews arrive in the metro within days. Some are competent and some are not, and confidence on your doorstep tells you nothing about which.
Four questions sort them quickly:
- Which jurisdiction license do you hold? Colorado has no statewide roofing license. Littleton issues Class D-5, Englewood D-2, Centennial and Columbine Valley their own, Jefferson County its own.
- Where were you based two years ago? A warranty from a company that leaves after the season is not a warranty.
- Is this a contract or an inspection authorization? Read it. Contingency agreements signed on a doorstep can bind you before anyone has been on the roof.
- Are you offering to cover my deductible? If yes, that is insurance fraud, and the claim is in your name, not theirs.
If there is damage
Whether it means a repair or a replacement depends on density and distribution, and ultimately it is your adjuster's determination rather than your roofer's. Scattered damage on one slope may be repairable; bruising across the field generally is not, because the whole covering has lost life at once.
Under Littleton's definition, work over 100 square feet is a replacement by code anyway, which brings the full package: tear-off to deck, six nails per shingle, Class H product with documentation at permit intake.
How we document hail damage → · How the claim process works →