Hail, falling branches and debris damage: assessing the harm

British hail rarely destroys a roof outright, but it does crack tiles, star rooflights and puncture flat roof membranes — and the damage is often invisible until the next heavy rain.

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The short answer

Impact damage is easy to under-estimate: a branch strike or heavy hail can crack tiles and rooflights without dislodging anything, so the roof looks intact from the ground while water gets in. After any impact event, check the loft for daylight and damp, and photograph everything before repairs.

What hail actually does to a UK roof

We don't get the softball-sized hail that flattens roofs in parts of North America, but 15–25mm stones driven at an angle do real, localised harm. Concrete tiles can craze or chip at the nose, older clay plain tiles crack outright, and slate — which is brittle across the grain — can split. On flat roofs the vulnerable elements are aged felt, where the mineral surface is already lost, and polycarbonate rooflights, which go brittle with UV and shatter or star. Nothing may fall off, which is precisely why hail damage often goes unreported until a leak develops months later.

Branch and debris impacts

A falling limb concentrates force in one spot. Under it you'll typically find several broken tiles, possibly a cracked batten, and sometimes a bent or displaced rafter. Blown debris — fence panels, trampolines, sheds, bins, roof furniture from neighbours — tends to skid across a slope and take out a line of tiles or a run of ridge. In both cases the impact zone is obvious, but the collateral damage a metre or two away is not: tiles adjacent to the strike are frequently cracked by the shock and stay in place until a frost finishes them.

How to check without going up

Photograph each slope at full phone zoom in good light and look for tiles with a different sheen, a visible line or a chipped edge. Then use the loft: with the lights off, daylight through the covering shows breaks, and running a torch along the underlay reveals impact marks, tears and water tracks. Under a rooflight, check the reveal and the plasterboard for staining. If you have a conservatory or a polycarbonate carport, check those panels too — they take hail damage first and give you an early indicator of severity.

Cracked tiles are a slow leak, not a fast one

Water passing a cracked tile lands on the underlay, runs down it and usually finds its way to an eaves or a lap and out. That's why the leak shows up on a ceiling several feet from the damage, and why it can take a season to appear. It also means the underlay is doing work it wasn't designed for, and on older roofs where the felt is already brittle it fails at exactly those wet spots.

Flat roofs and rooflight damage

On EPDM and single-ply, an impact puncture is a clean patch repair — a welded or bonded patch of matching membrane, done in an hour. On felt, impact often lifts a lap as well as puncturing, so the repair is larger. Polycarbonate rooflight domes that have gone milky and brittle are best replaced rather than patched; a starred dome will keep cracking outward with every thermal cycle. Glass units are replaced as a unit, and the kerb should be checked while it's off.

The insurance side

Impact and storm damage is usually covered, subject to excess. What gets claims refused is inability to distinguish new damage from existing wear, so date-stamped photographs, weather records for your postcode on the day, and a professional report describing the cause matter. We provide photo-documented reports that set out the mechanism of damage, the scope of repair and the cost, split between make-safe and permanent works.

Repair versus a wider re-cover

If a strike has broken a dozen tiles on an otherwise sound roof, repair it and move on. If the same event has revealed that the underlay is shredded and the battens are soft, you've learned something valuable about the roof's condition and it's worth pricing the bigger job — sometimes an insurer will contribute the repair value towards it. We always quote what the damage requires first, then note separately anything else we found, so the two never get blurred.

Getting it assessed

We inspect impact damage across Hampton, Hampton Hill, Twickenham, Teddington, Whitton, Richmond, Kingston and the surrounding TW and KT postcodes. Send photos with your postcode and a note of when the event happened, and we'll tell you whether it warrants a same-week visit or can be booked normally.

FAQs

Can hail damage a roof without breaking tiles?

Yes. It can craze the surface of concrete tiles, strip the mineral finish from felt and star polycarbonate, all of which shorten life without producing an obvious hole.

How soon should I get impact damage looked at?

Within days. Cracked tiles leak onto the underlay first, so acting before the next prolonged wet spell usually keeps it to a tile repair rather than timber replacement.

Will my insurer cover a fallen branch?

Generally yes under storm or falling-object cover. Photograph the branch in situ and keep any broken materials until the claim is settled.

Is a cracked tile urgent if there's no leak yet?

It's not an emergency, but it should be booked. The underlay is now the only barrier at that point, and on older roofs it won't hold indefinitely.

Get a fast quote

Family-run and Hampton-based. Tell us what you're seeing on the roof and we'll come and look properly before quoting.

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