Most storm damage in Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Edinburgh is not dramatic. A ridge tile shifts, a lead flashing lifts a few millimetres, a gutter bracket pulls away from the fascia. Nothing falls into the garden, nothing leaks that week — and then a damp patch appears on a bedroom ceiling in March. The check below takes about ten minutes and needs nothing more than your eyes and a phone camera.
1. Walk the perimeter and look down, not up
Fragments of tile, grit from felt, or lumps of mortar on paths and in flowerbeds are the clearest evidence that something has moved above. Mortar crumbs usually mean ridge or chimney bedding has failed. Sharp shards of slate mean an impact.
2. Check the roofline against a straight edge
Stand back across the street and compare the ridge line to the guttering below it. Both should be dead straight. A dip, a wave, or a gutter that no longer runs parallel to the roof edge is worth photographing and dating.
3. Look for daylight in the loft
On a dry, bright day, go into the loft with the light off. Pinpricks of daylight through the underlay, wet timbers, or dark staining on the rafters all point to a live water path. This is the single most useful check a homeowner can do, and it costs nothing.
4. Watch the gutters in the next downpour
Water spilling over the front edge means a blockage. Water running down the wall behind the gutter means the gutter has tipped or a bracket has gone. Both cause damp walls long before they cause roof failure.
What you cannot check from the ground
- Hairline cracks and impact bruising on tiles — invisible below about 5 metres.
- The condition of lead soakers and valley flashings, which sit out of sight of the pavement.
- Slipped tiles on rear or side elevations with no garden access.
- Mortar loss on the far side of a chimney stack.
- Debris sitting in valleys and behind parapets, where standing water starts.
Never go up a ladder after a storm to check a roof. Wet tiles, gusting wind and loose fixings are how people end up in A&E. A drone gets the same photographs from ten metres away in about twenty minutes.
When to escalate to a survey
Book a proper inspection if you find any of the following: daylight or damp in the loft, mortar debris on the ground, a visibly displaced ridge or hip tile, or an insurer asking for evidence. A drone survey gives you close-up photographs of every elevation, each defect circled and graded, in a report you can hand straight to a roofer for quoting or to an insurer as part of a claim.
Our storm surveys are a fixed £99 for residential properties and £149 for commercial, across G, ML and EH postcodes. No scaffolding, no ladders, no roofer standing on your roof telling you what they found.