A patio cover or carport is the roof most homeowners forget to count after a hailstorm. It is usually a smaller roof, often aluminum or polycarbonate with a shallow pitch, bolted to the back wall of the house or set on posts beside a driveway. Hail that dents the main shingles often leaves marks on these panels too, and the marks are easier to see in low morning light than on the shingles. If the cover is open or sagging after a storm, the decision about it is separate from the decision about the house roof, and it helps to treat it that way from the first day.
Why these structures take hail
St. Louis hail season runs through the spring and into early summer, and the stones that come down in those storms are large enough to dent thin metal and crack polycarbonate sheeting. A flat or low-pitch panel has nothing to shed the stone, so the impact lands square and holds. Aluminum panels show dents as small round bowls, often in a pattern that matches the size of the stones. Polycarbonate can show a star crack, a white haze around the impact point, or a clean hole where a stone struck near a fastener line. None of these marks looks like ordinary wear, and most of them are easy to lose once the sun has dried the surface.
What to photograph before anything is moved
Start with the whole cover from the yard, standing far enough back that the panel layout, the posts and the attachment to the house all fit in one frame. Then walk each section and photograph the panels nearest the gutter line, because hail often hits the edges and corners first. Set a coin or a tape measure beside a dent so its size is visible. Take a second set from a low angle with the sun off to one side, since that is when a dent's shadow shows its depth. Write down the date of the storm if you know it, and the date you took each photo.
Do not hose the panels or scrape a crack before you have photographed it. Dirt and pollen can hide a small chip, and a rinse can wash the white haze off a polycarbonate sheet. If a panel has come loose, leave it where it is until the photos are finished, and keep any pieces that fall.
Fasteners and the connection to the house
The panels are only part of the structure. The ledger bolts or lag screws that fix a cover to the back wall carry its load, and a hailstorm can loosen them without leaving any mark on the metal. Look closely at the screw heads where the cover meets the wall. A washer that has lifted, a head that has pulled through the panel, or a gap between the flashing and the siding is worth a close photograph. If the cover has a gutter along its outer edge, check whether that gutter has pulled away from the fascia.
Carports on posts have a different weak point. The post base is set in concrete or bolted to a pad, and the cross beams can sag if a heavy limb or a load of stones has pushed a panel down. A level held on the top beam will show a sag faster than the eye will. Photograph the level in place, with its reading visible in the frame.
Standing water on a low panel
A patio cover that hail has bent may hold water in the dip. Standing water on a shallow roof adds weight, and it also finds the next weak fastener. If you see a pool on the panel after a rain, photograph it with the date and time. The pool shows where the sheet has lost its slope, which matters when the cover is measured. Do not walk on a bent or cracked panel to get a better angle. Set a ladder on firm ground and lean the camera over the edge, or photograph from an upstairs window if that view is clear.
What a written scope should say about these structures
A carport or patio cover is often left out of a house roof estimate, or it appears as one line with no measurements. A written scope should name each structure separately, state the panel material and gauge where it can be read, and give the length and width of each section in feet. It should say whether the work is panel replacement, fastener replacement, beam straightening or full removal. If the cover is attached to the house, the scope should show the flashing at the wall and say who replaces any siding the work touches.
Keys Roofing documents this kind of damage the same way it documents the main roof. The photographs, the measurements and the written scope go into the homeowner's hands, and Keys attends the work as the roofing contractor. Missouri law bars a roofing contractor from representing or negotiating a homeowner's insurance claim, so Keys does not take that role for these structures or for the house. Any roofer who offers to handle that conversation for you is stepping outside what the statute allows.
What to ask before the crew arrives
Ask who will measure the cover and whether those measurements will appear in the written scope. Ask whether the panels will be replaced in full sheets or in patches, since a patch that does not match the existing gauge or profile can look different from the rest of the cover within a season. Ask how the attachment to the house will be inspected once the old panels come off, and whether the beam or post condition will be photographed before any new fasteners go in. Ask whether the cover will be braced while the work is done, because a carport with its panels removed can shift on its posts.
Ask where the old panels will go. Dented aluminum sheets are often hauled off as scrap, but some homeowners want to keep a sample for matching later. Ask that the scope note the dimensions of every removed piece, so the material count on the new order matches what came off.
Timing the repair
A structure with open panels or a loose attachment should be covered before the next rain front. Spring storms in the St. Louis region often arrive in short runs, and a cover that loses a sheet on the first night can drop debris onto a driveway or a parked car before anyone has checked it. A temporary cover is not a repair, and the photographs should be taken before any temporary cover goes on. Keep the tarp or sheet clear of the attachment points so the fasteners can still be seen and photographed.