Living in Northern Illinois means dealing with extreme weather on a year-round basis. While homeowners tend to panic the most about massive hailstorms or heavy winter blizzards, wind is often the most consistent and destructive force attacking your home.
In McHenry County, it is not uncommon to experience intense spring cold fronts or severe autumn squalls that produce straight-line wind gusts exceeding 60 or even 70 miles per hour. When the wind howls that loudly, you can actually hear the framing of your house creaking under the pressure.
The morning after a massive windstorm, most homeowners step out onto their front porch, scan the yard for fallen tree branches, and take a quick glance up at the roof. If they do not see any massive patches of bare wood, or if they don’t find full shingles lying in the middle of their driveway, they assume the roof survived completely unharmed.
Unfortunately, this assumption leads to severe, long-term water damage.
Wind damage on an asphalt shingle roof is rarely obvious. High winds do not have to rip a shingle completely off your house to destroy its ability to keep water out. The most devastating wind damage is subtle, invisible from the ground, and slowly compromises the entire waterproofing system of your home.
Here is exactly how extreme wind forces interact with your roof, how the invisible adhesive seals break, and why you need to have a professional inspect your property after a major blow.
The Aerodynamics of a Roof (How Wind Lifts Shingles)
To understand wind damage, you have to look at the basic physics of how air moves over a structure. When heavy wind hits the broad side of your house, it pushes up the exterior wall and hits the roofline.
Because the roof is sloped, the wind acts exactly the same way it does when moving over the curved wing of an airplane. The air moving over the top of the roof moves much faster than the air sitting still inside your attic.
This speed difference creates a powerful aerodynamic phenomenon known as negative pressure, or uplift. The wind is literally trying to suck the shingles straight up off the wood decking.
Roofing manufacturers understand this physics problem, which is why asphalt shingles are engineered with two specific defenses against wind uplift: roofing nails and a thermal sealant strip.
The roofing nails hold the top half of the shingle to the wood decking. But the bottom half of the shingle—the part that is visible to you—is held down by a thick strip of factory-applied asphalt adhesive. When the sun beats down on the roof after installation, this tar strip melts and permanently glues the bottom of the shingle to the top of the shingle sitting directly underneath it.
When installed correctly, this creates a tight, unified, wind-resistant surface across the entire roof. But when wind speeds hit 60 miles per hour, that system is put to the ultimate test.
The Hidden Failure: Breaking the Seal
When an extreme gust of wind catches the very edge of a shingle—usually near the corners of the roof or along the eaves where the uplift pressure is the most violent—it pries upward against that factory adhesive strip.
If the wind is strong enough, or if the roof is older and the adhesive has started to dry out, the tar strip will snap. The bond breaks, and the bottom flap of the shingle violently lifts up into the air.
As soon as the wind gust dies down a few seconds later, the shingle simply falls back down and lays flat against the roof again.
This is the hidden danger of wind damage. If you stand in your driveway the next morning and look up, the roof looks completely normal. All the shingles are still attached, and everything is perfectly flat.
But the waterproof seal is permanently broken.
Dirt, dust, and pollen blow under the loose flap, coating the sticky tar strip and ensuring it will never glue itself back down again. The next time a normal, moderate rainstorm hits McHenry County, the wind will push the rainwater directly under that unsealed flap. The water bypasses the surface of the roof entirely, soaking into the underlayment and eventually rotting the wood decking.
The Breaking Point: Creased Shingles
If a lifted shingle is bad, a creased shingle is a complete structural failure.
When a massive gust of wind breaks the adhesive seal, it doesn’t just lift the shingle an inch or two. Often, the wind bends the shingle violently backward, sometimes folding it completely in half against the row above it.
Asphalt shingles are heavy and rigid. When you bend them past a certain angle, the thick fiberglass matting inside the center of the shingle snaps.
When the shingle falls back down to the roof, it will have a distinct, dark horizontal line running completely across the top third of the flap. Roofers and insurance adjusters call this a “crease.”
Once a shingle is creased, it is entirely compromised. The fiberglass is broken, and the protective mineral granules along the crease will quickly wash away in the next rainstorm. The exposed asphalt will dry out in the sun, and within a year, the bottom half of that shingle will snap off completely and blow into your yard.
How the Repair Process Works (And Why Patches Often Fail)
Homeowners often ask if we can just come out and glue the loose shingles back down, or if we can simply replace the three or four shingles that got creased in the storm.
The answer is yes, a localized repair is sometimes possible, but it is incredibly difficult and heavily dependent on the age of your roof.
To replace a single damaged shingle in the middle of your roof, a professional contractor has to pry up the healthy shingle directly above it to access the hidden nails. If your roof is relatively new and the asphalt is still flexible, this is a standard repair.
But if your roof is 12 or 15 years old, the shingles have been baked by a decade of Illinois summer heat. The asphalt is dry and incredibly brittle. When the roofer gently lifts the healthy shingle to pull the nails out, that healthy shingle will immediately crack and snap in half because it has zero flexibility left.
Now, instead of one broken shingle, you have two. When they lift the next row up to fix the new broken shingle, that one snaps too. It causes a domino effect of destruction up the entire slope of the roof.
This is why a severe windstorm often results in a total roof replacement rather than a simple patch job. If the materials are too old and brittle to be repaired safely, the entire slope must be torn off and replaced.
When to Call Your Insurance Company
Standard homeowners insurance policies cover wind damage. However, insurance adjusters are trained to look for very specific, documented evidence before they will approve a full replacement claim.
They will not buy you a new roof just because it is old, and they will not approve a claim if they determine the shingles lifted because of poor original installation (such as the nails being shot too high on the shingle line). They need to see a high volume of legitimately creased shingles, or they need proof that the shingles cannot be repaired without causing further damage.
This is exactly why you need a local roofing professional in your corner before you file a claim.
A local expert will climb onto the roof, physically check the adhesive seals on the corners and peaks, and mark every single creased shingle with chalk. They document the exact scope of the wind damage, take high-resolution photos, and build the evidence required to force the insurance company to pay what you are owed.
If a severe storm recently tore through your neighborhood, knocking down fences and large tree branches, your roof took the exact same beating. Do not assume your home is safe just because you cannot see the damage from the lawn. Get a professional inspection and catch the broken seals before the water gets inside your walls.
Did a Heavy Windstorm Just Hit Your Neighborhood? Don’t wait for your broken shingles to turn into a massive indoor water leak. If the wind was howling loud enough to pull down tree branches in your yard, the experts at Peerless Roofing Inc. need to check your roof for broken seals and creased shingles.
We will perform a thorough, honest inspection, document all the damage, and let you know if you need a quick repair or if it is time to involve your insurance company. We fight for our local McHenry County homeowners to ensure their properties are fully protected.
Call us today at (815) 669-5070 or visit our contact page to request a FREE wind damage inspection. All work is 100% guaranteed, and we offer senior and veteran discounts.
Peerless Roofing Inc., 4569 Prime Parkway, McHenry, IL 60050-7036 Peerless Roofing Inc. is locally owned and operated right here in McHenry, IL, proudly serving the surrounding areas including Algonquin, Cary, Crystal Lake, Huntley, and Woodstock.