question about hail

[internaughtfull]

Hi,

I had some hail recently, which dented the ridge cap on the roof and removed some gravel from the shingles. I do not have any leaks. I looked in the attic and saw one spot where the 1x6's had been broken. One place had a splintered crack, and another had 12" piece about 1-2" wide knocked out, and you could see some black fabric [I assume the roofing felt] pushing through, but upon close inspection during a rain storm, there was no dripping. I went on top of the roof and looked in that area, and there was no hole in the shingles.

What could have caused that? Can the hail break the 1x6's and not remove the shingle? Or was that damage done by the roofer?

I was also wondering if it was ok to put dimensional shingles on top of 3 tab shingles without a rip off and replacing felt.

Thanks,

itchy

[DerbyDad03]

Were you present when the hail hit?

We get hail of the tiny "ouch that hurts" variety but nothing like the golf or base or soft or bowling-ball sized that I've heard about.

Do you think that you got hail that was big enough to break a 1 x 6?

You asked "...or was that damage done by the roofer?". Did you have a roofer doing work recently? What was (s)he doing?

In any case, I would make sure the shingles were supportted from underneath. I wouldn't want shingles simple bridging a gap in the roof sheathing. I think that that would be just asking for trouble, especially for anyone walking on the roof.

One little mis-step could lead to one big mis-step.

[dpb]

...

I wouldn't say it would be impossible, but I think it highly unlikely you could actually have broken 1x6 (open?) sheathing by hail and not have gone through the roof at the same time. I'd vote that was more likely previous damage.

After such an extreme hail event (and apparent other structural damage as well) I'd not even consider a roof-over w/o a complete tearoff. Who knows what else you would be covering up and just asking for early failure by doing so.

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[dpb]

On 5/23/2011 1:49 PM, dpb wrote: ...

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BTW, we're in one of those areas prone to large hail so I've certainly seen severe enough hail to cause the damage; just that if there is missing material there wouldn't have been support for the hailstone.

OTOH, if it is just a crack (and particularly if there were a know or other weakness in the area already), I can certainly see that the hailstone could make the break but rebound and not actually penetrate.

Again, I'd definitely _not_ do anything but a re-roof...what level of damage does the adjustor give?

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[hrhofmann]

You refer to "the roofer". What was a roofer doing on the roof??? Did you recentlyhave it re-roofed? How manylayers of shingles are currently on the roof? Check with your local building / zoning depts to see if dimensional shingles are allowed for a reroof without removing the current layer (layers?).

[clare]

I'd re=roof completely, including putting plywood sheathing over the

1/6 (open deck) roof.

[dpb]

On 5/23/2011 2:25 PM, [e-mail] wrote: ...

Well, it's not totally clear it is open deck -- the indication of "losing some gravel" off the existing shingles makes one wonder. Of course, I've seen worse than somebody not filling in when replacing formerly wood shingles so can't rule it out. Lack of enough info to know for certain...

[willshak]

internaughtfull wrote the following:

That had to been some large and heavy hail to punch a hole in a 1x6 piece of wood. I could imagine some denting of an aluminum ridge vent from smaller hail. I would suspect that it was damage from some other source.

[dpb]

On 5/23/2011 6:19 PM, willshak wrote: ...

Didn't say it punched hole thru, only it was broken (I think, no pictures).

But, while it is a large hail stone and (fortunately, not terribly common), I've seen hail punch completely thru 3/4" ply, the roof and/or trunk/hood of an automobile and other pretty amazing damage.

Take baseball to grapefruit size hail and put it w/ a 60-80 mph t-storm wind and it'll wreak true havoc.

The last one like that here (SW KS) was in '04 or '05 -- it blew strongly enough that hail shredded the siding on the Sonic drive-in building 3 ft off the ground -- that much of a windblown angle under the drivein canopies.

An empty apartment in the assisted living complex where mother was at the time had picture window broken out (there were essentially _no_ surviving windows on either the east or north side of any building in the entire northern 2/3-rds of town). Since was empty was no furniture to stop it; it came in so nearly horizontal it made holes thru sheetrock on west wall approx 8-ft away...

I've had an insurance adjuster was going over the damage to the church with after that tell me he actually saw concrete sidewalks cracked in one location.

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[Steve B]

Hail within the same storm can be different diameters.

Steve

[willshak]

That's why I said large and heavy. Here, baseball sized hail will dent the hell out of any car's top, hood and trunk lid, and metal building roofs, but will bounce off a shingled covered roof. I still don't think just hail would crack 2 x 6 lumber under shingles. Of course, if a hurricane or tornado was involved, that would exceed the factor other than just gravity. But, let's wait for the OP to tell us how big the hail was.

[dpb]

On 5/23/2011 9:52 PM, willshak wrote: ...

Isn't tuba, it's 1x. And, if there were knot or other structural defect already, it's surely not out of question to break.

As noted, I've personally seen it go clean thru 3/4" ply and leave clean holes...cracking a 1x ain't much different.

But, again, sure, depends on the actual hail and the storm as well as the condition of the roof to begin with...

All I'm sayin' is I can believe it could be from the hail not that it definitely was.

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[willshak]

Yes, I read that, but just wrote tuba by mistake. I have 4x8 3/4 plywood under my roof shingles. We've had small meteorites go through 3/4 plywood roofs, but not hail. I have an electronic shield over my roof, so I'm impervious. :-)

[Evan]

I think whether or not a baseball sized hailstone could crack a 1x6 piece of roof sheathing without punching a hole through the shingles or felt paper of the roof has more to do with the condition of said board before the hailstone hit it...

If it was old and dried out and ready to crumble all on its own the impact could have splintered it without damaging the rest of the roof...

Sort of like how if you have de-mineralized bones, you might suffer a broken bone because of a fall or a punch when someone with stronger bones would not experience the same result...

~~ Evan

[internaughtfull]

The hail varied in size, with the largest I found being racquet ball size, inbetween golf ball and tennis ball. Totaled my car, broke the chimney cap, ruined the ridge cap, but the shingles do not look that bad, even though they are not the dimensional type, just regular 3 tab algae resistant shingles, 7 years old.

I will definitely go for a complete roof and attic inspection and get the tear off, plus ask about the plywood over the 1x6's whenever a roofer can actually get out here. Thanks for all the feedback,

itchy

[Jules Richardson]

We got golfball-sized hail a couple of weeks ago - something I'd heard about but always kind of dismissed as being exaggeration.

I couldn't find any obvious damage to anything afterwards, though, so I suspect that the 1x6" damage that the OP has is unrelated and possibly due to their house settling or the frame warping due to seasonal changes.

cheers

Jules

[dpb]

I can assure you that baseball and larger to the grapefruit size is well within the range of the possible...serious t-storm country will generate some mammoth stones in the general area on average of every couple of years or so. Out here (W KS) golfball-sized will occur somewhere in the area several times every year; it's just part of "normal" spring/early summer weather patterns. Although this year the bulk of the severe weather seems to have shifted to the SE; we're in the far SW corner and haven't yet had a single t-storm this year. We're in severe/extreme drought and just missed yet another good chance yesterday for any precipitation of any kind--we're to the point we'd even take the hail; it'll melt and there's no wheat of any consequence left and the corn isn't large enough to matter (what irrigated that has been planted; many haven't tried 'cuz would take so much water w/ no rain wouldn't pay) and there's no dryland corn or milo even been planted yet. We've had barely over an 1.5" since last August and it's even drier on west... :( Meanwhile, same ol' places keep getting drowned time after time. Brother's place in Joplin missed by a little less than a mile Sunday; niece's house flattened by large tree and one wall out plus all the glass but they're ok...haven't been able to get thru since yesterday AM on either land or cell lines to follow up.

Generally a good inspector/adjustor will see stuff the average homeowner won't. It also depends on how much hail actually falls of course--a few large stones won't leave a lot of damage even though they're big; cover the ground w/ them 6" deep or more and it's a whole different story.

Again, it's unlikely the break was hail alone if the material was sound to begin with; I'd still not rule it out entirely if there were existing flaws but the size OP indicated in the followup isn't mammoth so major structural damage is indeed unlikely. But, nothing says there wasn't one humongous stone amongst the others, either... :)

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[dpb]

On 5/24/2011 8:52 AM, dpb wrote: ...

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There are a zillion images/stuff on the web; a useful reliable compendium of severe events for the not-faint-at-heart in looking at data is at

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[Tony Hwang]

Hi, What type of house? Age of the house? Hail stones usually cause surface/cosmetic damages not structural. I believe what you see in the attic is not related to hail storm. I live in the fringe area of a known hail band. Insurance cos. spend millions seeding the cloud to prevent major hail storm every year. Living here for 40 years, I had one cracked skylight by hai; stone which insurance took care of.

[internaughtfull]

Tony Hwang:

It's a brick 67 rancher, not a steep pitch, with lots of surface area for hail to bounce off of. The suggestion that it might be the house settling, plus some hail pressure seems plausible. Cloud seeding? Maybe they can figure out some anti-tornado dust :).

itchy