Storm Damage Roofing
Twenty-five percent is a number that decides more storm jobs than most owners ever hear about. In Florida, the existing-building code says that no more than a quarter of a roof section may be repaired, replaced or recovered in any twelve-month period unless the whole section is brought up to current code. A 2022 change softened it considerably: if the roof was built or last replaced under the 2007 Florida Building Code or later, only the repaired portion has to meet current requirements. For older roofs, the original rule still bites. Which means the same hailstone that damages a third of one slope can produce two completely different scopes of work on two houses built ten years apart. Ask early which side of that line your roof falls on, because it changes the number on the estimate far more than the shingle does.
Storm damage roofing is everything between the moment the weather passes and the moment the roof is whole again. APC Roofing carries that sequence out in Florida, Colorado, Kansas and Missouri: emergency protection first, a real assessment second, then permanent repair or replacement.
Stage one: stop the water
Temporary protection is a job with its own standards, not a bedsheet and some bricks. A tarp or dry-in has to be sized well past the opening, fastened so wind cannot get under an edge, and lapped so water runs over it rather than into it. Otherwise it fails in the next squall and takes intact roofing with it on the way. Where damage is extensive, larger areas get dried in with underlayment rather than covered patch by patch. Emergency protection buys the days needed for a proper repair, and most policies expect the owner to take reasonable steps of exactly this kind — failing to can affect what is covered later.
Stage two: find out what the storm really did
The visible hole is seldom the whole story. Entry points get mapped, and they usually sit well above the spot where the ceiling stained. The deck is checked for saturation, delamination and lost fastener grip. Wet insulation is identified so it can come out rather than be sealed in. Edges, ridges, valleys, penetrations and flashings all get examined, because those details fail quietly and reopen when the next system arrives. Hail is quantified rather than described, using marked test squares of a hundred square feet on each slope and counting only impacts that fracture the mat or strip granules down to asphalt; eight in a square is a threshold many carriers use for replacing that slope. Wind damage gets traced past the bare patch to the creased and unsealed shingles around it, which are the ones that fail next. All of it is written down with photographs, which serves the repair and any claim equally well.
Stage three: the scope conversation
An owner can interrogate this directly, and should. Is the damage confined to one slope or turning up on several? Do the shingles around it still flex, or snap when a hand goes under them? Is the sheathing dry? What proportion of a new roof would this patch cost on a covering that may already be near the end of its life? Then there is the practical wrinkle that drives a surprising number of replacements: matching. Discontinued shingle lines and years of color fade mean a repaired section can be sound and still obviously different from twenty feet away, and on some roofs enough of the surface is affected that patching does not restore the system. The code question above sits on top of all of it. The right answer is the one the evidence supports, and evidence means photographs, counts and measurements you can look at rather than a verdict delivered from the driveway.
The roof that goes back on should be better
A storm replacement is a chance to correct what the old roof did poorly, and code often forces part of that anyway when a roof is replaced rather than repaired — fastening patterns, underlayment, edge securement. Beyond code, the upgrades worth weighing are specific. Impact-rated materials where hail is a seasonal certainty, meaning Class 4 under UL 2218: a two-inch steel ball dropped from twenty feet, twice on the same spot, with nothing cracking through. Six nails per shingle instead of four, which is what most manufacturers require for their highest wind warranty. A sealed roof deck where wind-driven rain is the threat. And better edge metal everywhere, because the perimeter is where wind does its first work.
Timelines after a widespread event
When a storm damages a whole region, crews, materials, permits and inspections queue at once. The real sequence is emergency protection immediately, assessment quickly, permanent work scheduled as materials and access allow — and a place in that sequence is a more honest answer than a date. Interior repairs follow the roof, because finishing drywall under a roof that is still open wastes the drywall.
