I inspect every roof DJK touches myself, and here is the part most homeowners do not expect. Most of what I find, you can spot from your own driveway in about ten minutes. So if you want to know how to check your roof for damage before the next storm, you do not need a ladder, and you should not get on one. This is the exact walk I do before I ever climb, so you know whether you actually need to call anyone at all.
It is early summer, which is exactly when you want to look. Nearly all of Atlanta's hail falls between February and August, and April is the single worst month, according to the National Weather Service office in Peachtree City that covers our metro counties. We also average around nineteen damaging-wind days a year, and more of those land in July than any other month. You are not past the danger in June. You are in the middle of it.
Here is the short version before I walk you through it. From the ground, you are looking for missing shingles, shingles that are curled or lifted, dark patches where the surface looks scoured, granules collecting in the gutters and downspouts, rust or gaps in the metal around the chimney and vents, a sag in the roofline, and any yellow or brown ring on a ceiling inside. That is the whole roof inspection checklist for homeowners, and you run it without leaving the yard.
Why you do this from the ground, and stay there. Let me put a number on it. More than 500,000 people a year are treated for ladder injuries in the US, and around 300 die. Those are CPSC-cited figures. About half of the non-fatal falls happen from under ten feet, which is roughly gutter height, the exact spot a homeowner thinks is safe. So treat this ten-minute check as a screen to decide whether you need a pro, not a replacement for one. The roofing trade group, the NRCA, recommends a real inspection twice a year, spring and fall, plus after any hail or wind event. Your walk tells you whether this is one of those times.
Minute one to three: walk the perimeter and look up. Start at the street and circle the house slowly, reading the roof plane from a few angles. You are watching for three things: missing shingles or tabs, which leave a darker rectangle where the layer underneath shows; shingles that are curling; and shingles lifted along the bottom edge. The curl and the lift are not the same problem, and this is where most checklists quit being useful.
What each sign means. A shingle curling up at the top edge is heat and age. In this climate that starts around year twelve to fifteen, years earlier than the same shingle would up north, because Georgia sun, UV, and humidity cook a roof faster than the brochure life suggests. A shingle lifted along the bottom usually means wind broke the seal strip that glues each row down. That is one of those nineteen wind days doing its work. Curl is a slow age conversation. Lift is a storm conversation. They lead to two different calls.
Minute three to five: read the gutters and downspouts. Walk to where the downspouts dump out and look at the splash blocks and the mulch under them. You are looking for granules, the sandy ceramic grit that coats asphalt shingles. Here is the honest part the scare-piece blogs leave out. Some shedding is normal. A roof in its first year sheds manufacturing excess, and a light, even scatter of grit is nothing to panic about.
Normal versus not. Even grit on a newer roof is usually fine. What you do not want is granules piling up heavily after a single storm, especially paired with dents in the soft aluminum of the gutters. Hail does not strip a roof evenly. It leaves tight, circular bare spots where each stone hit, with the black mat showing through, and it dents metal on the way down. That combination, fresh grit plus dinged gutters after a storm you remember, is the one that means get it documented. It is the difference between a roof that is simply aging and one that took a hit, and it is the single most useful thing I can teach you to see.
Minute five to seven: flashing, valleys, and the spots around penetrations. Now look at the metal. Flashing is what seals the seams: the strips around the chimney, the collars around plumbing vents, the step flashing where the roof meets a wall, and the lines running down the valleys where two roof planes meet. On Atlanta roofs, this is almost always where a leak starts, not the open field of shingles. I am looking for rust, gaps, or metal that has lifted. Fifteen summers of heat will dry the sealant around a chimney to powder, and that powder is where water gets in first.
Minute seven to nine: the ninety-second attic and ceiling pass. Step inside. Walk the top-floor ceilings and look for yellow or brown rings, the interior tell that an exterior problem already got through. If you can get into the attic safely, look for daylight through the deck, damp or matted insulation, or dark streaks on the underside of the wood. The deck, the wood layer under your shingles, is the part you cannot see from the ground at all, and it is the part that actually keeps water out. When a storm tears shingles off, a properly sealed roof deck can cut the water that gets into your home by up to ninety-five percent, per IBHS testing. You cannot inspect the deck from the driveway, which is exactly why the ten-minute check has a ceiling.
Minute nine to ten: age and the Georgia reality. Do the math on how old the roof is. An asphalt roof in Georgia does not last as long as the package promised. Three-tab shingles run about fifteen to twenty years, architectural shingles about twenty to thirty, and in real Atlanta conditions what I actually see is closer to fifteen to twenty-five years. So if your roof is past fifteen, it earns a closer look even when it reads fine from the street. Age is where the rules come in too. If a roof already carries two layers of shingles, Georgia code means the next job is a full tear-off to the deck, not a third layer on top. A full re-roof needs a county permit, while minor shingle repair usually does not, though that one is worth confirming with your own county. If yours is in that window, it is worth reading up on what a roof replacement in Atlanta actually involves before a storm forces the decision for you.
When to stop and call a roofer. A ground check gives you one of two honest answers: looks fine, recheck in the fall, or something is off, get real eyes on it. Here is my stop-and-call list, the signs you need a new roof or at least a professional look: any missing shingles, tight circular granule spots after a storm, dented gutters paired with fresh grit, a ceiling stain inside, a roofline that sags, a roof past fifteen years, or anything you simply cannot see clearly from the ground. Any one of those is the line where the walk has done its job and it is time for someone on the roof. If it is storm related, we put a roofer on your roof and hand you a written report with dated photos for your records. You work with your insurer, we work on your roof.
A few questions I get the same way every week, so let me answer them straight.
Can I inspect my own roof? Yes, from the ground, which is exactly what this walk is. What you should not do is climb up to confirm what you see. That is the part you hand off, both for the falls reason above and because the things that decide a roof's fate, the mat under the granules and the deck under the shingles, are not reliably readable underfoot anyway.
What do granules in the gutter mean? On their own, often nothing, especially on a newer roof shedding its first-year excess. They become a real signal when the grit shows up heavy after a specific storm and comes with dented gutters and bare circular spots on the shingles. Even, light shedding is aging. Sudden, heavy, post-storm shedding with dented metal is impact.
How often should you have your roof inspected? The NRCA line is twice a year, spring and fall, plus after any hail or wind event. Your ten-minute version slots in between those, the cheap early-warning check that tells you whether to move the professional one up.
How do I check my roof for storm damage without going up there? Everything above. Walk the perimeter and look up, read the gutters and downspouts for grit and dents, scan the flashing and valleys for lifted or rusted metal, and do the ninety-second ceiling and attic pass for stains and daylight. If you want the storm-specific version, here is more on what Atlanta summer storms do to a roof, and on what to do first if your roof is leaking once you find water inside.
Time this right. Run the walk now, in early summer, again in the fall, and immediately after any hail you actually hear hit the windows, since March through May is the heart of our hail season and the wind threat runs through July. A documented look in June beats a stained ceiling in September.
Ten minutes, twice a year, beats finding out from a water stain over the dinner table. Run the walk, trust what you see, and if your check turned up anything on that stop-and-call list, that is exactly what we are here for. Found something? Book a free roof check with Don. We put a roofer on your roof, document what we find in a written report with dated photos for your records, and you work with your insurer while we work on your roof. If you would rather have a documented set of eyes on it now, book a full storm-damage roof inspection in Georgia and I will come read the roof the same way I just showed you.
