The short answer
Yes, a roof inspection after a storm is worth booking if you can see slipped tiles, debris in the garden, a new stain on a ceiling or water where there was none before. If nothing looks different, a careful look from the ground may be enough. Storm damage often starts small and shows itself weeks later, so a check also gives you dated photographs if you need to make an insurance claim.
When a post-storm check is worth booking
Book one if the gusts were strong enough to shift things in your garden: bins, fence panels, a trampoline, branches from a neighbour's tree. Anything that can move those can move a ridge tile or peel up a flashing. Book one too if a ceiling stain appears in the days after the rain, if you hear dripping in the loft, or if you find fragments of slate, tile or mortar lying on the drive or caught in a downpipe shoe.
If the weather passed and nothing seems different, there is no need to rush. Look over the roof from the pavement or the garden and note the date. Waiting a few days is not ignoring the risk. A roofer on a ladder in high wind adds danger without adding information, so a calm day soon afterwards is the better time for a proper look.
Where rain is actually coming in, that comes first for us: a temporary make-safe to keep the water out. The full survey waits until the slopes are dry enough to work on.
What you can check safely from the ground
Keep your feet on the ground and leave the ladder in the shed. Standing in the garden, with binoculars if you own a pair, scan each slope for tiles or slates sitting proud or crooked against their neighbours. Along the very top, where two slopes meet at the ridge, check for gaps and shifted tiles. Then check the verges, the sloping edges beside each gable wall, because wind tends to get beneath the covering there first.
Signs that matter
Dark patches on the stone or brick around a chimney can point to a flashing that has lifted. A gutter dropping at one end, or clogged with grit that looks like crushed tile, suggests the roof above has shed something. Moss or leaves swept across the lower courses can also hide a slipped tile. Indoors, check top-floor ceilings and the loft for fresh brown rings, a damp smell or insulation that feels wet to the touch. Photograph anything you find, with the date visible on your phone.
What a roofer inspects first after a storm
On site we begin with the spots that wind attacks hardest: the ridge and hips, where bedding mortar or fixings may have worked loose, then the verges and eaves, where the covering is most exposed. Flashings come next. These are the lead or metal strips sealing the joints around chimneys and walls, and then the valleys, the channels where two slopes meet, which a falling branch can knock out of line.
On a stone or slate roof we hunt for slipped or cracked slates and snapped pegs. On a tiled roof we test clips and nibs and see whether any tiles are riding up. Under BS 5534:2014 the ridge and hip tiles should also be held by mechanical fixings, so we test those as well as the mortar. In the roof space we study the timbers and the lining for daylight and wet wood, because a leak can run a long way along a rafter before it stains a ceiling.
Cost, photographs and insurance
MyBuilder's 2026 inspection guide gives £150 to £500 for a roof survey, with a standard one at £150 to £250. The same site's repair guide puts storm-damage fixes at £500 to £1,500, so finding a loose ridge early pays for itself. Both are national ranges from a cost guide, not our prices, and a storm repair varies a good deal with access and the covering involved. After the survey comes our quote in writing, covering scaffold, materials, labour and clearance.
If you think you may claim on your buildings insurance, tell the insurer early and keep your photographs. Our survey photographs show the actual damage on your roof, which gives an insurer something firmer than a description. What a report should contain for a claim is covered in our guide to roof inspections for insurance claims. Whether the insurer pays is their decision, not ours.
After the check: repair, monitor or survey in full
Findings after a storm tend to fall into three groups. One or two slipped tiles, or a flashing that has lifted, count as a repair, and we aim to make it match the existing covering. A roof with some age and several small faults may deserve a closer look at its overall condition. And if the storm exposed something you already suspected, such as tired battens or a failing underlay, a full survey tells you what the roof will want over the coming years.
If a sale is on your mind, a storm check can double as groundwork: our page on a roof survey before selling explains how a report helps. If water has already found its way in, a roof damp survey traces where it went. The full range of checks sits on our roof inspections and surveys page.
Repair work carries our 10-year workmanship guarantee, given in writing. Send us photographs on WhatsApp or ring 01453 933613 and tell us what you saw. We will say which part of the roof to look at first. Afterwards we remove the debris, including whatever the storm brought down.