The soffit is the panel that closes the underside of the roof overhang, running from the outside wall out to the edge of the fascia. In most St. Louis houses it is vinyl, aluminum or wood, and many of them have vent slots cut into the panel so air can move into the attic. Hail that comes in at a slant, which is common when a storm line moves through, can reach the soffit on the side facing the wind. The damage there is easy to miss from the lawn because it sits above eye level and in the shadow of the eave.
This page covers vinyl soffit in particular, since it is the most common material on the older ranch and split-level houses across St. Louis County. The steps are the same for aluminum, with the differences noted below. Nothing here tells you whether a claim is worth filing or what a policy will pay. That question belongs to you and your insurer. What a roofer can do is document the eave carefully, put the findings in writing with photos and measurements, and attend as the contractor while you deal with your own insurer.
What hail does to vinyl soffit
Vinyl is tough in warm weather and brittle in the cold. When a hailstone strikes a panel in a cold snap, the impact can split the panel along a line of nail holes or crack it at a vent slot. The dent may be shallow and round, with a whitened edge where the vinyl has stretched. Sometimes there is no visible dent at all, only a hairline crack that shows when you press the panel with your palm and it flexes more than the panels beside it.
Aluminum soffit tends to show dents as clean, rounded depressions, and those can be photographed the same way you would photograph dents on gutters. Wood soffit, less common now but still present on older houses, shows hail as bruised fibers and sometimes a split along the grain. Paint on wood can hide the bruise until the paint lifts, so do not rely on the surface color to tell you the panel is fine.
Check the vent slots first
The vent slots are the openings in the soffit that let outside air into the attic space above the insulation. Hail can knock a slot out of line, crack the strip of vinyl between two slots, or push a louver into the opening. A slot that is partly blocked by a dented panel is no longer a clean intake. Ask your roofer to look at the slots from below with a flashlight, and from the attic side too if the attic hatch is accessible. Light coming through a slot from the attic is a quick way to see whether it is clear.
Some soffit uses a continuous vent strip instead of punched slots. The same checks apply, but you are looking for a strip that has pulled out of its channel or split at a joint. In either case, a blocked or damaged intake is worth a line in the written scope, because the attic ventilation depends on it working.
Look at the nail line and the channel
A hailstone that lands hard on a soffit panel can jolt the whole run out of its channel. The panel may still look straight from the ground but sit a fraction lower than its neighbor, or the joint between two panels may have opened by a sixteenth of an inch. Check each joint with a flat hand. If a panel flexes or rattles, the fasteners at that point are the first place to look. Note whether the nails have backed out, whether any nail heads have punched through the vinyl, and whether the fascia behind the nail line shows fresh damage.
The fascia behind the soffit matters here. If the soffit is rattling because the fascia board is soft or split, a soffit repair alone will not hold, and that belongs in the same written scope as the soffit itself. The fascia and the drip edge meet at the same line, so photograph them together rather than in separate sets.
What to photograph, in order
Start at the corner of the house on the side that faced the storm, and work along the eave one panel at a time. Hold the phone level, with the whole panel in frame, and then take a closer shot of any dent or crack. Put a tape measure or a coin next to the damage so the scale shows in the picture. Shoot the vent slots straight on and then at an angle, so a blocked slot shows up. Photograph the nail line and each joint between panels. Repeat on the next side of the house, and on any side that did not face the storm, so the comparison is on record.
Keep the originals on your phone rather than screenshots, and write the date and the address in a text file that goes with them. A dated set of photos is much easier to use later than a folder of unlabeled images. If you have weather records for the storm, note the date next to the photos, because that date is what the rest of the file will be checked against.
What it costs
A soffit repair is usually priced by the run of panel that has to come down and go back up, plus the vent material, the fasteners and the time to reset the channel. Replacing a few panels is a different job from pulling off the whole side of the house, and the written price should say which one it is. Ask whether a fascia repair, if one is needed, sits inside the same number or on a separate line. Ask whether paint or color match is included, since vinyl from different years does not always match in shade.
If a roofer lists the soffit as an extra on top of the roof with no measurements, ask for the linear footage on each side and the number of panels. A number without a measure cannot be checked against the photos later, and you will have no way to tell whether the line covers the damage you saw.
What to ask before you sign
- Which panels are dented, cracked or loose, and which are noted as cosmetic only?
- Are the vent slots clear from the attic side, and how was that checked?
- Is the fascia behind the soffit damaged, and if so, is that repair in the price?
- Does the written scope include photos of every side, with measurements?
- Will you give me the written scope and photos so I can send them to my insurer myself?
Keys Roofing can be reached at (314) 220-2333 to set a time for a look at the eave. Bring the dated photo file, and ask the crew to walk the soffit from the ground and from a ladder on the same visit so the findings match what you saw.