News From Eastbrook Construction Roofing Contractors

Types of Storm Damage

Due to the chaotic nature of thunderstorms, the type of damage that can occur varies. However, we can go over the most common type of damage. When a storm strikes, you can experience wind damage, rain damage, hail damage, and damage from trees and branches falling. Each of these types of damage can have different effects on your roofing components. So let’s break down what types of roof damage you will see from these aspects of thunderstorms.

Wind Damage

Eastbrook has talked about wind damage before. However, it never hurts to emphasize how damaging wind can be. After all, most people would think rain and hail are more dangerous. Yet, wind damage is the most common type of damage your roof can deal with. Strong, fast-moving winds create havoc in its wake. These winds can rip shingles and gutters from your home. If winds are particularly vicious, they can even damage your roof’s frame! In Michigan, high winds and lightning have caused tree branches and even whole trees to topple on roofs.

Rain Damage

Rain is another common source of roof damage. Heavy rain can be painful to walk through and cause pain to your house. While rain usually cannot damage a roof on its own, in combination with the aforementioned elements, it can be the most destructive force on your home. New vulnerabilities like missing shingles and improper installations can cause leaks in your roof. As a result, you can potentially experience water damage to your attic and walls as it seeps in.

Hail Damage

Although it’s not as common as wind and rain, hail often accompanies thunderstorms. Hail can cause massive damage. After all, it is solid precipitation that can be as small as a pea or big as a baseball. When hail hits your roof, your shingles can suffer from cracks and holes. Over time, these cracks, and holes can damage your roof’s infrastructure eventually leading to a full roof replacement!

Other Roof Damage

Your shingles are not the only part of your roof that can be damaged during a thunderstorm. Some other damages include:

Granule Loss

Clogged and Broken Gutters/Downspouts

Damage to Roof Supports or Accents

If you are worried that your roof has suffered thunderstorm damage, please get a Free roof inspection and estimate from Eastbrook Construction!

Should You Replace Your Gutters?

People ask if they should change their gutters when they replace their roofs. This is a question that can only be answered by asking several questions. This will allow you to understand some of the current guides to water management.

Determining Factors

Several years ago, it was pretty standard to see gutters on houses of all sizes and roof configurations. The most common configuration was the standard three-inch gutter running around the house. This is no longer the case. Proper water management dictates that we need to consider factors to find the right gutter system. These factors include the overall size of the roof and the amount of water to be handled.

We also need to consider some climate changes that have occurred over the years. As some of our rain storms seem to grow more intense, a larger gutter will be needed to handle this additional water. Some homes with gutters that are four inches wide. Meanwhile, other homes have gutters that are five or six inches wide.

So, who can help you decide which width of gutter should be in your home? Eastbrook Construction can help with those decisions. As professional roofers, we also understand your rainwater guttering needs. If water from your roof is not diverted away from the home properly, it can damage the foundation. The first step in diverting this water away from your foundation system is by installing gutters along the lower part of your roofline where water has the opportunity to fall directly onto the ground below. We need to capture this water rather than let it make its way straight down.

Drain It Away

Of course that doesn’t mean we want to keep all of that water at the edge of your roof. We must also drain it from the gutter system. In the past, this meant that your gutter system would have a three-inch downspout attached to the gutter. Why three-inch standard instead of larger downspouts? For appearance purposes. Many people felt that a downspout detracted from the appearance of the home and the less showing, the better off everyone would be. This also meant that there often would not be enough downspouts attached to the gutters to allow for proper drainage of the gutter. This of course created problems of water overflowing the system and water seepage into the foundation.

All of this became even more problematic on larger roofs or on roofs where there was a wider gutter installation.

Understanding Your Gutter Needs

Thankfully, we have come to a much better understanding of what a gutter system is for and what it takes to correctly do the job that a gutter is intended to do. We know that a larger roof means more water flowing into the gutter. With this additional water flow, we need greater capacity to handle it and that happens with a wider gutter than three inches. When we replace your roof we will use formulated calculations that take into consideration the roof area to be drained off and we will suggest gutters that are capable of handling the amount of water expected to fill the gutter. We will also take into consideration the number of downspouts needed to drain the gutter system correctly. We will also install these downspouts where they will do their best to prevent problems from water not being drained correctly.

In addition to having the correct size of gutter around your home and the right downspouts, we also need to consider the grade of your landscape. Water must be drained far away enough from the home to prevent backup as well it must hit land grade (incline) that diverts water away from the home. Once again as professionals, we will look at everything and make sure that the gutter system that is on your house when your roof is being replaced by us is correct. If we notice problems we will make suggestions to either enhance what you already have or that you replace your gutter with something better suited to handling the task of moving water away from your home foundation system.

Roof Damage from Thunderstorms