Take a look at this roofing gauge. Has anyone used that before?
http://www.haageducation.com/publications.asp
Marcel 
Marcel,
Never heard of such a tool. I just checked out the demo and it appears to be an OK tool.
I think I’ll stick to my typical roof inspection. I can actually tell a roof’s age within a two or three year span. There have been several times the Listing agent has asked me “how I knew the roof age?”. I tell them “from experience of seeing thousands of roofs”.
I’m all set with a tool that could actually lie to you. I’ve seen plenty of young asphalt shingles with plenty of granular, but have failed for other reasons.
I’d have to see a survey of in$urance adjusters that would pay a claim that the manufacture wouldn’t based on this gauges results.
That will never happen and I doubt I’ll have one in my tool bag…maybe santa…
Ya right. I think it’ll be a cold day in hell.
I watched how they used it and my loggic was telling me the same thing.
I was just curious as to how many had seen this thing.
I agree with you guys, I will walk the roof and use my experience in roofing.
Marcel
Marcel,
There is some good out of the link you provided for those that weren’t aware of this company.
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Not all impact damage comes from hail :roll: :roll: :roll:
Barry,
I gotta agree, there.
About one month ago an adjuster pulled one of those shingle micrometers out of his gym bag on the roof.
All that told me, was how inexperienced he was at knowing the difference between shingles was.
If they mic it to thin, due to granule loss and other weathering, they are limiting the adjustment amount properly due to the HO.
If you gently slide that guage on or if you force it to its narrowest opening, could dramatically affect the interpretation of the adjustment.
I have previously seen that tool on Haags site and can cite their viewpoints regarding actual Hail damage near verbatim, but whenever an insurance adjuster wants to utilize their referencesm they always neglect to tell you othe key factors about what actual hail damage is.
Ed
That is what I thought Ed when I saw that tool, I could not imagine that they would be accurate depending on how you slide that gauge on the shingle and there might not be a good representation of the actual wear of the shingle. Also, they said that you needed to know what the Manufacturer was and that could possibly be another problem, due so many types of roofing that look the same.
Thanks.
Marcel
The purpose of that shingle gaugeis to judge the thickness of the shingle to form an educated guestimate of the warranty for that type of shingle.
The adjuster wants to know if it’s a 20, 30, 40 or 50 year warranty in order to calculate the cost to replace whatever needs replacing.
An inspector can use it for the same purpose, but any inspector using it must include language in the report stating that he’s not warrantying the or certifying the roof. It’s just a little more information you can provide to your client.
They’re easy to use, you just slide it on until it’s snug and read the calibration marks.
Might be a good marketing tool, roofs are big business up here.
The problem I have with Haag Education is that they are basically prostituting themselves out to insurance companies. I have been doing roofing inspections (hail damage) for private clients and roofing contractors for a while now.
While many of roofs I inspect for roofing contractors do not have hail damage, it is frustrating to see a clients claim denied by one of Haag’s so called “experts”.
Their main arguement is that loss of granules has little to no impact on shingles which is not true…manufactures clearly concedes that depending granule loss the life expectancy is clearly diminished. Their other issue they will use to negate a claim is that impact marks are from blistering. Trying to get them to explain how blistering is only occuring across all southwest slopes from which a hailstorm originated leaves them speechless…yet they still will not concede hail damage.
I currently have 3 clients that are looking at getting a class action lawsuit against Erie Insurance Company…I hope they find a laywer who is willing to take their case however as we all know, the insurance industry has a tremendous amount of power and resources as their disposal.
While Haag does have some good information, its unfortunate that they have prostituted themselves out to insurance companies…worse that they are “certifying” their students as experts for $925.00.
regards
Jeff
The question is, how many granules have to be missing before it becomes functional damage? I’ve seen roofs with hits called and the entire roof written off when you could barely spot the hail hits. Very few granules lost.
I’ll tell you one thing. Finding unbiased sources of information about how roofs deteriorate and are damaged and especially about what constitutes wind and hail damage is very difficult.
Jeff, how do you determine what’s functional damage and on what do you base your opinion?
I took the Haag course a few months ago. I thought it was pretty comprehensive but I also think that there’s some truth to what you say. That was also discussed among students, most of whom were roofing contractors, some of which were claims adjusters.
We aim to be more comprehensive and more accurate. After 6 months of research and writing we started shooting last week.
Ken,
Granules are obviously a key component of compositional shingles. Their primary purpose is to protect the mineral matting (fire, uv rays, weather, etc.) as well as aid in preventing staining / alage problems and of course provide aesthetics (color) to the roof.
Manufacturers provide an expected service life of their products that range from 20 -25 years for 3 tab shingles and 30 - 40 year ratings on architectural shingles.
Being that the manufacturer has done their due diligence in giving those ratings, I simply look at the shingles age and their condition at the time of my inspection and based upon my experience (30 years…I still install shingles to this day) and training, I will make an honest assessment as to whether the shingles will achieve that expected rating taken into consideration the local environmental conditions as well as any anomalies found upon the roof.
As I have explained to my clients, insurance agents, claims adjusters etc. that several hailstorms with stones as little as 1/4 inch can easily do as much damage as one with 3/4 inch the difference being that the damage is not as noticeable until years down the road when a owner is trying to figure out why his 9 y.o. roof looks like its 20 years old.
Within the last year we have had at least 4 hailstorms come through this area. Of course what comes with it are storm chasers who try to say that every anomaly is hail damage. Insurance companies are taking a beating and of course they being a business whose primary purpose is to make money (nothing wrong with that) have set about finding ways to deny claims. As I said earlier, most of the time roofers call me to inspect a roof for aleged hail storm damage, there isn’t any. I have been on roofs marked up with crayons and chalk that were nothing but anomalies at best…while at the same time I have seen legitimate damage which was denied by insurance carrier…but I digress back to your question(s).
In determining hail damage I first look for multiple signs that hail has infact struck the roof…of course you know how to look and document that;
annotate the roof pitch, style of roof, type of shingles, identify each slope along with their direction they are facing. I separate (and note) anomalies from those of hail stone impacts and to what degree the impacts are…brusing, fractures, punctures, etc over a given area…minmum of 100 sq feet to as much as the whole slope of the roof when tree coverings (or other) would affect that slope. I do not necessarily depend on metal fixtures being that they are not reliable indicators however I will note any damage and take it into consideration based upon my knowledge of which direction the storm originated from.
After documenting my findings I then take into consideration the age of the roof, the damage of the roof including granule loss and then make an assessment as to the liklihood of the roof being able to acheive its rated service life. Admittedly sometimes that can be tough…however any compositional shingle should easily reach at least 75% of their projected service life, outside that then I call for replacement. If I am called to court then I think a jury and or judge would see that I am being realistic and fair in my assesment.
While I know that inspectors in general do not have a level of expertise in every (or most) areas they inspect, one should not be afraid to speak on those that they do. If a client ask me point blank to give an estimate on how long their roof will last…I don’t have a problem in telling them and I also don’t have a problem in documenting it on my investigative inspections. It is from that angle that I will put myself up against any adjuster or so called roofing expert.
While I am sure their are some very good and reasonable Haag students that have a grasp on roofing systems, the ones I have been coming across basically are more concered that they take care of those (insurance / adjustment companies) that feed them. It would not be that difficult to pin them to a wall in a court of law. One could easily go through their records and look at their denial percentage as well as finding out how much “experience” they truly have.
Below are a couple pictures where a Haag “expert” said no hail damage existed…yet indeed it does including heavy granule loss 30 days after a hailstorm. This particular home was actually hit several times by smaller storms…looking closely and doing a more exhaustive study once can almost figure out the direction of each storm…however that was not my job…its simply to determine if hail did impact the roof and to what extent is the damage.
