After a storm, it’s always good to check over your roof, gutters, and drains to ensure there has been no damage. To help, below is a checklist of things to check to ensure your roof is still in good health.
Any fallen trees or branches on your roof?
The impact of large branches falling on trees can damage both the roof materials and underlying infrastructure, hence also scan over your roof for any branches or other objects that may have landed on your roof – also good to check the gutters and valleys too.
Have any missing tiles or roof sheets?
Depending on the severity of a storm the winds can be so strong that roof tiles or metal sheets can become dislodged or lifted from your roof.
With this in mind I’d recommend looking around your roof to ensure all your tiles and metal roof sheets are in place and no tiles have blown off or roof sheets have lifted.
Have any missing roof vents or caps?
If there are strong winds during a storm, it’s not uncommon for rusted or old caps of roof vents or flues to come off. Therefore, after a storm, it’s worth checking your vents and flues to ensure all the caps remain. Below is an example of a rusted cap that blew off a flue during a storm in Perth, Western Australia.
Are your Whirlybirds damaged or not spinning?
Sometimes during a storm whirlybirds can get damaged causing them to no longer work (Particularly in hail storms). A key indicator will be whether or not your whirlybird is still spinning.
Therefore, if you have whirlybirds on your roof I’d recommend checking that they are still spinning in the wind and operating as usual. If they are not, check out our whirlybird page for more information.
Are your Skylight windows intact?
Sometimes during a storm, particularly during a hail storm, your skylight windows can get damaged or smashed. If you have a skylight then it’s always worthwhile to check that your skylight window is still intact.
Are all your gutters still connected properly?
Sometimes during storms, the large volume of rainwater within the gutters can cause immense pressure on gutter brackets and supports. If you have a rusty gutter bracket it won’t take much pressure for the gutter to fall and detach itself from the fascia like in the photo above.
Do your eaves have water stains?
Although these may take a while to show, stains on your eaves is a very good indication that water has been backfilling and overflowing from the back of your gutter into the eaves, or that a downpipe within your eave is blocked.
See also: Reasons your gutters are overflowing and what to do about it
Have your soakwells sunk?
During storms, you can get a massive amount of water running off your roof and entering your soakwells. When this happens they can quickly back up with the rainwater either overflowing out of the soakwell drain entry or forcing the soakwell lid to lift up.
If the lid lifts up or becomes dislodged this can become an issue as the soakwell lid and the surrounding soil and pavers above may collapse back into the soakwell.
Apart from making your soakwell unfunctional, this will create a hazard in your yard as you’ll see the soil or area above the soakwell becomes sunken and if walked on, could collapse into the soakwell.
Therefore, after a storm always have a quick look around your soakwells to ensure the ground is stable with no sunken areas visible.
Professional Roof inspectors to check for storm damage
Roof plumbers across Australia provide roof inspection and roof repair services, particularly after a storm. Therefore, if you’re concerned that your roof may be damaged we recommend that you contact a roof plumber in your local area to perform a professional inspection of your roof.
