Hail claim and full roof replacement in Five Points, Raleigh

The scope

A 1952 hip-roofed bungalow in Five Points, hit by the hailstorm that came through the Triangle in late January. The owner had a denied claim in hand and a roofer who had already told her the roof was fine.

Both were wrong, and neither had documented anything.

The challenge

Hail damage on an older three-tab roof is genuinely hard to read from the ground, which is why claims on it get denied. The bruising is soft, it does not tear the shingle, and it looks like ordinary ageing to anyone not looking for it. What tells the story is the pattern: bruises on the exposed planes and not the sheltered ones, granules in the downspout splash pan, dents in the soft aluminium of the gutters and the vent caps.

The second problem was time. A denied claim can be reopened, but a supplement gets weaker every week that passes between the storm and the survey, because the insurer can reasonably ask what else happened to the roof in the interval.

What we did

Tomás Reyes surveyed it the day after the call. Every roof plane was photographed with a scale and a chalked test square, with matched photographs of the undamaged north plane for comparison, plus the gutters, the vent caps and the splash pans. The written scope was itemised by material and labour and went to the owner within two days for her to file.

We do not negotiate with insurers and we said so at the first visit. What we supply is documentation and an inspection attendance; the claim itself stays between the owner and her insurer. Full detail on where that line sits is on the storm damage page. We met the adjuster on the roof on his second visit, which is where most of these disagreements actually get settled.

The claim was approved on reinspection. Tear off and replacement took four working days: full strip to the deck, two sheets of soft decking replaced and photographed before they were charged, synthetic underlayment, ice and water shield in both valleys and at the eaves, architectural shingles, new valley metal, new boots and a continuous ridge vent to replace three tired box vents.

The gutters were dented enough to be in the claim, so they went on at the same time with hidden hangers and downspouts moved clear of the foundation.

The outcome

Ten working days from first call to final invoice, four of them on the roof. The owner's deductible was hers to pay and it was due on completion; we do not absorb a deductible and we say why on every claim we touch.

The attic is cooler by a genuinely noticeable margin, which is the ridge vent rather than the shingles. Finished 6 March 2026.