How to Check Your Roof for Storm Damage From the Ground

The wind drops, you open the curtains, and there is a tile in the middle of the lawn. Now what? You cannot see most of your own roof from your own garden, you are not going up a ladder, and the local roofers are not answering because every other house in the street has the same problem.

This guide is about the part you can do yourself on the morning after: working out what has actually happened, deciding what is urgent and what can wait, and gathering the evidence that decides a claim months later. It is not about getting on the roof. You should not be on the roof.

At a Glance: What You Find, and How Worried to Be

Repair prices are MyJobQuote's roof repair and roof leak repair guides, last updated 27 August 2026 and 27 May 2026, and its gutter repair guide of 9 September 2026. Gutter and fence exclusions are from the Association of British Insurers' storm FAQs.

For scale, the ABI reported on 17 February 2026 that storm damage to homes cost insurers £244 million in 2025, a 32% rise on 2024, and that the average storm damage payout was £2,450, some £750 higher than the year before. That sits inside a record £6.1 billion of total property claims.

What You Can See From the Ground, and What You Cannot

Before anything else: stay away from the building. The Government's Prepare campaign guidance, last updated 24 August 2026, tells you not to go outside to repair damage while a storm is still going, and afterwards not to walk too close to walls, buildings and trees, because they may have been weakened. Keep well away from any cable that has come down.

The Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland put a useful number on the other half of this after Storm Isha, on 22 January 2024: winds in excess of 23mph, Force 5, will affect a person's balance and increase the chance of falls. That is an ordinary blustery day, not a storm. It is the reason ladders and storms do not mix.

Outside, From a Safe Distance

Walk the perimeter of your property, ideally from the far side of the garden or the opposite pavement, and use your phone's zoom or a pair of binoculars. Aviva's storm guidance, last updated 17 December 2025, tells its own customers to look for loose or missing tiles, crumbling pointing, and whether the television aerial and satellite dish are still firmly attached. Work through the roof in sections:

The tile and slate field is the easy one. Gaps show as dark rectangles where the underlay beneath is now doing a job it was never meant to do alone. A slipped tile that is still on the roof is as much of a problem as one that has gone.

The ridge and hips are where storms do their most expensive damage, and there is a useful clue here. BS 5534 was revised in 2014, with a compliance deadline of February 2015, and as Local Authority Building Control summarised at the time, mortar alone can no longer be used to fix ridges and hips: they must also be mechanically fixed. A ridge bedded only in mortar, with joints crumbling out, tells you the roof predates that change, and it sits right on the fault line between storm damage and wear and tear.

Then the edges and verges, where wind gets underneath: bargeboards and the mortar along gable verges. Then gutters and downpipes, looking for sagging runs, sprung joints and brackets pulled off the fascia. Then the chimney: pots leaning out of true, cracked or missing haunching, and flashing lifted away from the brickwork.

Inside, in the Loft and on the Ceilings

The loft tells you things the street cannot. Go up in daylight, with the light off, and look for daylight showing through the roof covering. Then look at the underside of the felt or membrane and at the rafters for fresh wet patches, which are darker and sharply edged rather than the grey bloom of long-term damp. Torn or billowing underlay is a common storm result and is easy to miss.

Aviva's roof leak guidance of 27 January 2026 lists the signs it expects customers to report: water staining on walls or ceilings, damp patches on the ceiling or in the attic, mould growth, peeling paint or bubbling plaster, and a damp or musty smell in upper rooms.

One warning about the loft. If a ceiling below you is holding water and has started to bulge, do not walk out across the joists above it and do not stand under it. That is a job for someone who deals with it for a living.

Be honest with yourself about the limits, though. In ombudsman decision DRN-5253224, one reason the complaint was not upheld was that the homeowner's earlier survey had inspected the roof only from ground level, so the felt and battens were never assessed. A professional inspection costs £150 to £400, averaging around £250, or £200 to £350 for a drone survey, per MyJobQuote's roof inspection guide of 12 June 2026.

Urgent, or Can It Wait Until Monday?

The triage rule is simpler than most guides make it. Something is urgent if water is getting in, if the structure is affected, or if anything could fall onto a public path, a road, or a neighbour's property. Everything else can wait for a roofer who is not working in the dark.

Homeowners consistently under-rate the falling-material category. Your local authority has emergency powers under section 78 of the Building Act 1984 where part of a building is in such a state as to be dangerous that immediate action is needed, and it may recover its reasonable costs from the owner. The ABI notes separately that buildings policies usually provide legal liability cover for occupiers where a roof tile or similar object causes injury or damage. Cover is not the same as avoiding the problem. A chimney pot leaning over a pavement is a today job.

What Your Insurer Will Actually Want

Photograph what you can see, before anything is touched or tidied. The ABI's storm guidance is consistent across its 2025 and 2026 releases: contact your insurer as soon as reasonably possible, only carry out emergency or temporary repairs if it is safe and you have spoken to them, keep an itemised invoice and any receipts, and do not be in a rush to throw away damaged items unless they are a health hazard. Most insurers run 24 hour emergency helplines.

Photographs are not a formality. In decision DRN-4952436, the homeowner's own pictures of missing tiles were decisive. The insurer's surveyor had visited and his own photographs showed the same missing tiles, but his report had not mentioned them. The complaint was upheld, with £200 compensation, and the ombudsman restated the principle that where an insurer relies on an exclusion, the onus is on the insurer to show that the exclusion applies.

It is also worth noting whether neighbouring properties were damaged. In DRN-4123830 the fact that a neighbour had suffered similar roof damage in the same period counted as corroboration that storm conditions had occurred locally.

The 55mph Figure Is Not a Rule

Most articles tell you a storm means gusts of at least 55mph. The ABI does publish that definition, alongside rainfall of at least 25mm an hour, snow to a depth of 30cm in 24 hours, or hail heavy enough to damage hard surfaces or break glass, and it notes 55mph is Force 10 on the Beaufort scale. Aviva and Ageas publish materially the same thresholds.

But it is an industry convention, not law, and it is not the ombudsman's test. The Financial Ombudsman Service publishes no wind speed figure at all. It asks three questions: whether storm conditions occurred around the date claimed, whether the damage is consistent with storm damage, and whether storm conditions were the main cause rather than something that would have happened anyway.

The decisions bear that out in both directions. In DRN-4123830, dated 19 July 2023, the insurer recorded 40mph and relied on its own 55mph definition, but the ombudsman's weather records showed gusts of 48 to 52mph, held that this was capable of causing the damage, and expressly rejected the insurer's suggestion that wind readings be averaged, because individual gusts cause damage regardless of averages. In DRN-5253224, by contrast, with a maximum recorded gust of 28 to 32mph and no named storm in the region, the ombudsman found the 55mph standard reasonable and did not uphold the claim.

So: a reading below 55mph does not end your claim, and a reading above it does not win it. Evidence decides it.

Need someone who actually answers after a storm? Search localroofer.directory to find roofing contractors in your area, compare who covers your postcode, and get more than one quote before you commit to anything.

Regional Price Differences

Roofing labour is priced regionally, and storm work is no exception. The clearest published picture comes from MyJobQuote's new roof cost guide, last updated 26 August 2026. The figures below are for a full roof replacement on a standard gabled semi, so treat them as directional for repair work rather than as repair prices.

For repairs specifically, MyJobQuote's roof repair guide of 27 August 2026 carries a separate London and South East column: minor repairs £150 to £400 nationally against £200 to £550, and ridge tile repairs £200 to £550 against £300 to £700. Its roof leak guide puts the gap at roughly 20% to 30% above the north, and notes rural areas can also run dear where specialists are thin on the ground.

A word on cost guides generally. Check the date on any page you rely on. Checkatrade's page titled "Storm Prevention and Repair Costs in 2026" carried a stated last-updated date of 30 January 2024 when we checked it on 19 September 2026. A 2026 headline does not mean 2026 prices.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I go up and look myself if I am careful?

The professional standard says no. The HSE's fragile surfaces guidance, updated 30 October 2024, states that all roofs, once fixed, should be treated as fragile until a competent person has confirmed they are not, and it lists slates and tiles among the materials concerned. Its roof work guidance adds that almost one in five deaths in construction work involve roof work, and that all work on roofs is highly dangerous even if the job only takes a few minutes. Those are trained people with equipment. Use binoculars or pay for an inspection.

My roof was already old. Does that kill my claim?

Not automatically. The ombudsman has been explicit that a property not being in perfect condition before a storm does not necessarily mean the damage resulted from wear and tear. What sinks a claim is evidence that the roof was already in poor repair and the storm merely revealed an existing problem, which is a different thing. Critically, where an insurer relies on a wear and tear exclusion, it is for the insurer to show the exclusion applies.

Should I get the damage fixed before the insurer inspects?

Do what is needed to stop the damage getting worse, and no more. The ABI's guidance is to arrange temporary emergency repairs only if it is safe to do so and after speaking to your insurer, keeping receipts and an itemised invoice because they form part of the claim. Temporary sheeting typically runs £100 to £300, with an emergency call-out premium of roughly £100 to £300 on top of normal prices. Full permanent repairs before an assessment risk the insurer disputing what was actually there.

Is a yellow warning nothing to worry about?

No, and this is widely misread. The Met Office's own warnings guide explains that yellow covers both low-impact weather that is very likely and severe weather that is possible but less certain. Storms are named jointly by the Met Office, Met Éireann and KNMI when an amber or red warning is expected, and the 2026/27 season list begins with Austen. Worth remembering too that a storm reaching the UK may carry a name given by the French or Spanish forecasters instead, as happened three times in the 2025/26 season.