A storm leaves a roof in one of three states. Some damage is obvious from the garden: a row of tiles missing, a ridge slumped sideways, a fascia hanging loose. Some is hidden, such as a lifted flashing or a slipped slate that only shows when water appears on a bedroom ceiling a day later. And some storms leave nothing at all, which is the one that catches people out. The first hour after the wind drops matters, because what you do then decides how much water gets in and how well your claim is supported. This page covers that order of events and the repair that follows.
Once the roof is safe, the guide to a roof inspection after a storm explains what a proper inspection looks at and what the report should say.
Make people safe before you look at the roof
Start inside and outside at ground level. Keep children and pets away from the side of the house where tiles or chimney pots may have shifted, because a loosened slate can drop without warning in the next gust. If a branch, chimney stack or large section of roof has come down onto a path or driveway, cordon it off with whatever you have to hand. If anything is leaning on a power line, or you can smell gas, or a ceiling has sagged under the weight of water, leave the area and phone the emergency services or the relevant network operator rather than a roofer.
Do not climb a ladder in wind or on wet tiles to have a look. Wet clay and concrete tiles are slippery, old roof timbers can be soft, and a fall from even one storey does serious harm. Binoculars from the garden or a phone zoomed in from an upstairs window show most of what you need. If the loft hatch is easy to reach, a torch and a look at the underside of the roof will tell you a lot without leaving the landing.
Stop the water getting further in
Water is the damage that grows. A missing tile exposes the underlay (the sheet of felt or breathable membrane under the tiles), and underlay is only a second line of defence, not a roof. Once it is wet through, rain reaches the rafters, the loft insulation and the ceiling plaster below. Inside, move furniture and put a bucket under any drip. If the ceiling is bulging with trapped water, pierce it carefully at the lowest point with a screwdriver, standing to one side, so the water drains into a bucket instead of bringing the whole ceiling down. Switch off the lights on that circuit if water is near a fitting.
The outside job is a temporary cover over the damaged area, and that is a roofer's job, usually from a ladder or scaffold tower with a harness and the right fixings. A tarpaulin battened over the exposed area makes the house watertight until proper materials can be sourced. We cover how this is done in our guide to temporary roof repairs and tarpaulins. A leaking roof is something we prioritise when you call, and we will make it safe first before any discussion of the full repair.
Document the damage before anything is moved
Your insurer will want evidence, and the best evidence is taken before a tarpaulin goes on. Take dated photographs and a short video from the ground showing the whole elevation, then closer shots of each visible fault. Inside, photograph stained ceilings, wet insulation in the loft, damp patches on walls and any damaged belongings. Keep any broken tiles, slates or fragments that fall into the garden, because they show what was damaged and how. Write down the date and time of the storm and the date you first noticed the damage, and note the name of the storm if one was named.
It also helps to have a record of the roof from before the weather. Any photograph taken from the garden last summer, an estate agent's listing, or an earlier survey report shows the roof was sound. Our guide on what evidence your insurer needs after roof damage lists the full set, and it is worth reading before you ring the claims line.
Talking to your insurer
Home insurance policies vary a great deal, so read your own schedule and wording rather than relying on anyone's general rule. Storm is normally a named peril on buildings cover, but policies define it, often by a wind speed or by the severity of the weather, and many carry an excess. Most policies also expect you to take reasonable steps to prevent further damage, which is another reason temporary protection matters. Keep every receipt for emergency work, because it may be reimbursed as part of the claim.
Insurers separate sudden damage from gradual deterioration. A storm that tears tiles off a sound roof is a different claim from a roof with long-standing leaks that finally shows up in heavy rain. If you want to understand where that line falls, read our piece on storm damage or wear and tear. We can give an honest written account of what we find, with photographs, but whether a claim is accepted is the insurer's decision, and we will not predict it for you.
What storm damage looks like on different roofs
Pitched tile and slate roofs
Wind gets under the leading edge of a roof and lifts. On a tiled roof the first things to go are the ridge tiles and hip tiles at the top, the tiles along the verge (the sloping edge of the roof at a gable end) and the eaves courses at the bottom. On many older houses the ridge and verge tiles were bedded in mortar alone, and when the mortar has perished they peel away in one go. Current practice under BS 5534:2014 is to fix ridge, hip and verge components mechanically as well, so a repair after a storm is a chance to put that right. Slates lose their nail fixings or crack across the nail hole and slide, leaving a gap you can often see as a dark patch in the pattern.
Flat roofs
Flat roof membranes fail differently. Strong wind can lift the edge of a loosely bonded sheet, tear a felt layer at an upstand (the part of the covering turned up a wall), or blow off an edge trim. Ponded water after a storm makes any weak seam worse. The damage is often a small tear that lets water in at one point and shows up in a ceiling some distance away.
Chimneys, flashings and roofline
Chimney stacks take the full force of the wind. Pots can rock loose, mortar joints open and the lead flashing around the base can lift and bend. Fascias, soffits (the boards under the eaves) and bargeboards (the boards along the gable edge) can be torn away, and guttering often comes down with them. These are easy to spot from the ground and easy to underestimate, because behind a broken fascia the rafter ends and the wall plate may be wet.
What a roofer does on the first visit
The first visit has two aims: make the roof watertight, and find out what has really happened. Making it watertight means securing loose material that could fall, refixing or covering exposed areas, and where needed fitting a temporary cover. Finding out what has happened means checking beyond the obvious. A storm that strips ten tiles may also have cracked others nearby, lifted the underlay, or shifted battens (the thin laths that carry the tiles). We look at the underside from the loft as well as the top, because daylight showing through the roof, damp rafters and stained insulation all tell us where water has been getting in.
Our free survey includes photographs of your own roof, so you and your insurer both see what we see. After that you receive a fixed written quote that separates what is storm damage from what is simply old and worn, so the figures can be put in front of a loss adjuster without confusion. Where repair works, we repair, and we say so when the rest of the roof has years left in it.
What repairs involve and what they cost
Most storm repairs fall into a small number of jobs: replacing and re-bedding or mechanically fixing ridge tiles, replacing missing tiles or slates with matching ones, re-dressing lead flashings, repairing a flat roof tear, refixing a fascia and guttering, and rebuilding the top of a chimney stack. Matching is the hard part on older roofs. A hand-made clay tile from the 1930s or a weathered Welsh slate has a colour and texture that new stock does not copy, so we look for reclaimed or close matches and tell you where a visible difference is unavoidable.
For an emergency call-out, a trade cost guide gives £150 to £350 plus materials as a typical UK range, and adds 20 to 35% for London and the south east. That is a national figure for orientation only. Scaffold, if the damage is high or on a gable, is a separate cost, and a large repair such as a re-roof of a damaged slope is priced after the survey. Your fixed quote follows the survey.
| What you see | What it usually means | First step |
|---|---|---|
| Tiles on the ground | Fixings or mortar failed, underlay may be exposed | Photograph, keep fragments, arrange temporary cover |
| Ridge sagging or open | Mortar bed perished or fixings lifted | Keep clear, have it secured by a roofer |
| Stain on a ceiling | Water has reached the roof void | Catch the drip, check the loft from the hatch |
| Lead flashing lifted | Wind has got under the lead at a chimney or wall | Temporary cover, then re-dress or replace |
| Fascia or gutter hanging | Fixings torn, rafter ends may be wet | Remove the hazard, check the timber behind |
Check the neighbours, and check after the next one
If one house on a street has lost tiles, the roofs next door are probably stressed too. A wide storm tends to find the same weak points along a terrace or across an estate of identical houses, and neighbours often discover damage only when they hear about yours. It is worth a quiet word with the people either side, especially if you share a ridge, a party wall or a run of guttering.
Once repairs are done, keep an eye on the loft after the next period of heavy rain. A repair that is working will leave the underside dry. A fresh stain means water is finding another route, and it is better to know in the first month than when the next bill arrives. The wider range of this work is described on our page for emergency roof repairs in Basingstoke, or you can call us on 01256 213956 or drop a few photos into WhatsApp, and a survey can be booked.
