Storm Damage Roof Repair in Sterling Heights, MI

A sealed shingle resists wind until a gust breaks the adhesive strip under its tab. Once the tab lifts, it catches more wind, flaps, and folds across the top of the exposed part, leaving a crease. Enough flapping and the tab tears off and lands in the yard. IIBEC, the International Institute of Building Enclosure Consultants, puts it simply: wind damage leaves evidence (creases, folds, tears, missing pieces), and it shows up most at eaves, hips and ridges, where wind loads are highest. A tab that has merely come unsealed, with no crease or tear, isn't proof of wind damage. Creased tabs get replaced: new shingles slid into the courses and hand-sealed, as long as the neighbors aren't too brittle to lift.

A limb can crack the deck, split a rafter and push the gutter off the fascia, and some of that only shows from the attic. The limb comes off first (a big one is a tree service's job, wires are the utility's), then a roofer dries in the hole (the emergency roof repair page covers that), checks the framing from inside, and scopes the repair: sistered or replaced rafters, new decking, underlayment and shingles tied into the old roof. The homeowners guide from Michigan's insurance regulator, DIFS, gives tree removal coverage a $500 standard limit, and many insurers pay only when the tree fell or damaged property because of a covered peril.

Ridges and hips catch some of the highest wind loads on a pitched roof, and the cap shingles over a ridge vent are small, bent pieces. When they go, the vent underneath is left open to blowing rain. Wind also gets under loose metal: drip edge along a rake, step flashing whose sealant dried out, or the apron at the bottom of a chimney. The repair replaces the ridge cap with matched cap shingles nailed per the maker's pattern, refastens or replaces bent drip edge, and reseats wall and chimney flashing. If a chimney's counterflashing was only caulked to the brick, wind can peel it off; the chimney flashing repair page explains the cut-in method that holds.

DIFS also warns that wet, heavy snow can bring down roofs, porches, carports and outbuildings. Smaller damage is easier to miss: a cracked rafter or collar tie, a sag line along the deck, a porch roof pulling away from the house wall, or a detached garage roof that's visibly bowed. Check from the attic and from across the street once the snow melts (warning signs while it's still up there are on the emergency roof repair page). The repair is framing first (sister or replace cracked members, sometimes with an engineer's sign-off), then the deck and the roof covering. Ice dam damage is its own problem, covered on the ice dam removal page.

Gutters come down when a limb or wind catches them, or when ice fills them until the hangers pull out of the fascia, often bending the drip edge and splitting the fascia. A proper repair checks the fascia first (rotted wood won't hold new hangers), straightens or replaces the drip edge, then rehangs or replaces the gutter run with hidden hangers screwed into solid wood. More detail is on the gutter repair and soffit and fascia pages.