Found shingles on the ground after a storm? What to Do (And Why You May Not Need a Whole New Roof Yet)

Manitoba regularly sees wind gusts of 70–90 km/h, and a few times a year the city gets slammed with winds over 100 km/h. After some of those storms, homeowners across the city find shingles on their lawns and wonder the same thing: Oh no! Do I need a whole new roof now?

Here's the good news up front: often, no. Wind damage is frequently localized, and a prompt, well-done repair can protect your home and buy your roof years of remaining life. Here's how to tell what you're dealing with and what to do about it.

First: what wind actually does to a roof

Wind doesn't just push shingles off, it lifts them. As wind flows over your roof, it creates uplift which is strongest at the edges, corners, and ridge. That's why wind damage almost always starts in the same places:

• The roof edges along the eaves

• Corners of the roof

• The ridge caps along the peak

• Lifting or curling shingles

• Or any shingle whose sealant strip has weakened with age

A gust catches a lifted edge, breaks the sealant bond, and either creases the shingle or tears it off completely. Once one shingle goes, its neighbours lose their protection and go next — which is why wind damage spreads storm by storm if it isn't dealt with and repaired.

What to check after a windstorm

You don't need to climb a ladder. After the wind dies down:

1. Walk your yard and check your neighbours' yards downwind. Torn shingles travel.

2. Scan the roof from the street with your phone camera zoomed in. Look for missing shingles (you'll see the darker underlayment or bare wood), shingles sitting crooked, and lifted or missing ridge caps along the peak.

3. Look for creased or flapping shingles. A shingle that lifted and folded back in the wind may have settled back into place but the crease has broken it. Creased shingles look like a faint horizontal line or shadow across the shingle. They can leak later even though the roof looks "fine."

4. Check the eavestroughs, soffit, and fascia to see if any have pulled loose. Wind that damages shingles may damage these too.

5. Check your attic and ceilings after the next rain for damp spots or water stains.

Repair or replace?

This is the question we get on every wind call, so here's how we think about it:

Repair makes sense when:

• Damage is confined to only one area or slope: ie: a patch of missing shingles, some lifted ridge caps.

• The rest of the roof's shingles are still sealed down and are in decent shape

  
  

A proper repair involves replacing the damaged shingles and re-sealing the surrounding ones. Targeted repair is a legitimate strategy that many of our customers use to keep an aging roof watertight for another few seasons while they plan and budget for a full replacement. A few hundred dollars in timely repairs is far cheaper than the interior water damage resulting from an ignored bare spot; and it lets you replace the roof on your schedule instead of in a panic.

Replacement is the much better call when:

• Shingles are blowing off in most significant storms: this means the sealant strips have failed roof-wide, and each repair is just waiting for the next gust

• The exposed shingles are curled, brittle, or losing granules: wind damage on a worn roof is usually the roof telling you its time is up.

• The wind damage is widespread across multiple slopes

• You've repaired more than a couple of times: at that point the repair money is better put toward a new roof

When we come to assess a wind-damaged roof, we'll tell you honestly which situation you're in. If a $400 repair will get you a few more years, that's an option that we'll provide. We'd rather do your repair now and your replacement when you're ready than talk you into a roof you don't need yet.

Why speed matters even for minor damage

A missing shingle exposes a covering called the underlayment, which is only a temporary barrier. Sun and weather will break it down in weeks if left uncovered and exposed. Even worse, some homes will not have underlayment at all (a practice we DO NOT recommend). In this scenario, wind damage can expose the underlying roof deck itself which will practically guarantee water infiltration due to there being exposed wood; even if it affects only a small surface area, it is no longer water tight.

In Manitoba, an opening that lets in one fall rain will then let in snowmelt all winter and spring, running under surrounding shingles, freezing, and prying the roof apart from inside. A one-day repair in the fall can prevent a soggy, moldy attic discovery in the spring melt. Wind damage is the classic case of our motto: small leaks cause big problems.

What an Aurora Roofing wind-damage assessment includes:

We inspect the damaged area plus the wind-vulnerable zones (edges, corners, ridge), check how well the remaining shingles are sealed, look at flashings, eavestroughs, soffit and fascia, and give you two honest numbers where it makes sense: the repair price for now, and a ballpark for eventual replacement so you can plan instead of react.

Shingles in the yard after a storm? We'll assess it free and tell you honestly whether it's a repair or a replacement.

Call or text (204) 391-1355

email Auroraroofing204@gmail.com

Aurora Roofing is a family-owned and operated roofing company in Winnipeg, Manitoba, offering roof repairs, shingle replacement, Euroshield rubber roofing, eavestroughs, soffit and fascia, and rooftop snow removal.