After a Hailstorm in Grand Junction: A Step-by-Step Plan for What to Do Next

A hailstorm just rolled through your neighborhood. Now what?

The honest answer: not much, right this minute. Once the storm passes and everyone inside is safe, your job is to work through a few clear steps in order, without rushing or panicking. Hail damage rarely turns into an emergency in the first hour. It becomes a problem when it goes unnoticed for months and the high-desert sun and next storm widen the cracks. This guide walks you through what to do, step by step, from the moment the skies clear.

Step 1: Wait for the storm to fully pass, then stay off the roof

Grand Valley hailstorms often come with wind, lightning, and slick surfaces. Give it time to clear before you go outside, and once you do, keep both feet on the ground.

Climbing a wet or hail-covered roof is how homeowners turn a minor roofing problem into a hospital bill. You can learn almost everything you need from the ground and from inside your home. Save the actual roof walk for someone with the right footing and equipment.

While you wait, jot down the basics: the date, roughly how long the hail fell, and the size of the stones. “Pea-sized for ten minutes” and “quarter-sized for half an hour” tell very different stories about likely damage.

Step 2: Do a ground-level walkaround

Once it’s safe, walk the perimeter of your house and look for the easy-to-spot clues. Hail that dents metal and cracks siding is usually big enough to bruise a roof, too.

Check these spots:

• Gutters and downspouts for dents or dings.
• Metal vents, flashing, and your AC unit’s fins for pockmarks.
• Window screens, garage doors, and siding for impact marks.
• The ground for shingle granules, which look like coarse black sand washed into flower beds or at the base of downspouts.

Here’s a realistic example. After a June storm in the Redlands, a homeowner found a golf-ball’s worth of granules piled at one downspout and a dozen dents on their gutter run. That combination, dents plus granule loss, is a strong sign the shingles took a beating even though nothing looked wrong from the street. Our guide to spotting roof storm damage covers these signs in more detail.

Step 3: Check inside and in the attic

Head indoors and look up. Water stains on ceilings, damp spots around light fixtures, or a musty smell in closets can mean the roof let moisture through.

If you can safely reach your attic, bring a flashlight and look at the underside of the roof deck. Dark streaks, wet insulation, or a pinhole of daylight where there shouldn’t be one all point to a breach. A Fruita homeowner once found a single quarter-sized wet spot in the attic after a storm; it traced back to one cracked shingle over the garage, a cheap fix caught early instead of a rotted deck a year later.

If you find active dripping, that moves you into different territory. Our roof leak emergency plan walks through how to contain water and limit the damage while you wait for help.

Step 4: Take photos and write it all down

Documentation protects you later, especially if you end up filing an insurance claim. Photograph everything you noticed in Steps 2 and 3: the gutters, the dents on the AC unit, the granules, any interior stains.

Keep it organized:

• Date and time of the storm.
• Wide shots showing the whole affected area.
• Close-ups with something for scale, like a coin next to a dent.
• Notes on hail size and storm duration.

You don’t need to diagnose anything. You’re just building a clear record of what your property looked like right after the storm. If you decide to file, this record makes the process smoother. Our Colorado hail damage insurance claim guide explains how that paperwork fits together.

Step 5: Make temporary protection only if you truly need it

If there’s an active leak and rain is still in the forecast, a tarp over the affected area can buy you time. But tarping a roof yourself is risky, and a poorly placed tarp can trap water and cause more harm than good.

For most Grand Junction storms, the damage is cosmetic in the short term and there’s no rush to cover anything. Reserve tarping for a genuine, actively-leaking situation, and only if you can do it safely from a ladder without stepping onto the roof.

Step 6: Schedule a professional inspection

This is the step that actually answers your questions. A ground walkaround tells you whether to worry; a roof-level inspection tells you how much.

An inspector will check for bruised shingles (soft spots where hail knocked granules loose), cracked shingles, damaged flashing, and dented vents. They’ll tell you plainly whether you’re looking at a small repair, a section replacement, or a full roof, and whether the damage is worth filing an insurance claim over.

We serve homeowners across Grand Junction and the greater Grand Valley, and our storm and hail damage service is built around honest assessments, not pressure. If the roof is fine, we’ll tell you that too.

Step 7: Decide on repair, replacement, or nothing

Once you have the facts, you can make an unrushed decision. Sometimes the answer is a quick repair. A single Palisade homeowner needed just three replacement shingles and some fresh sealant after a hailstorm, a job done in an afternoon. Other times, widespread bruising across an aging roof makes replacement the smarter long-term call.

To get ahead of the next round, our pre-hail-season protection guide shows how to prepare before the clouds build. And if you want to understand potential costs, our breakdown of hail damage repair prices lays out realistic numbers.

Frequently Asked Questions

How soon after a hailstorm should I have my roof looked at? There’s no need to call in the middle of the night, but don’t let it slide for months either. Within a week or two is reasonable for most storms. If you see active leaking or a lot of granules and dents, move it up.

Can I really tell if my roof is damaged without climbing up? You can catch the strong signs from the ground and attic: dented gutters, granules washed out, ceiling stains, daylight in the attic. What you can’t do safely is confirm the extent, which is what a roof-level inspection is for.

Will a little hail damage really matter if my roof isn’t leaking yet? It can. Hail knocks off the protective granules that shield shingles from our intense high-desert sun. A bruise that isn’t leaking today can dry out, crack, and let water in a season or two down the road. Catching it early is almost always cheaper than waiting.