TL;DR
In San Antonio, get your roof professionally inspected once a year at a minimum, and twice a year, spring and fall, once it’s past about 10 years old. On top of that, get it looked at after any hail, high wind, or heavy storm, even if nothing looks wrong from the ground, because storm damage hides for months. The National Roofing Contractors Association actually recommends twice a year for every roof regardless of age. Tile and metal can stretch longer between checks. Asphalt shingles, which most San Antonio homes have, wear faster in our heat. At BH Roofing the 27-point inspection is free.
How often you need to inspect a roof in San Antonio comes down to one honest answer: more often than most people do it. The roof is the part of the house nobody looks at until there’s a stain on the ceiling, and by then the cheap fix is usually off the table.
Here’s the short version. Once a year is the floor. Twice a year once the roof has some age on it. And any time a real storm rolls through, you get it checked no matter what the calendar says.
Our climate is what makes the difference. It isn’t snow load or ice dams out here. It’s heat, UV, and the hail that comes through in spring. All three age a roof faster than a milder climate would, and all three do their damage quietly.
How often should you get your roof inspected in San Antonio?
Once a year, minimum, for a roof in good shape. That single annual check catches the slow stuff before it becomes a leak. Cracked or curling shingles, lifting flashing, granules washing into the gutters, the early signs that don’t announce themselves.
Push it to twice a year once the roof is past about 10 years old, or if it’s already been through a few hard storms. Older shingles get brittle in the heat, and the back half of a roof’s life is when small problems start moving fast. A spring inspection catches whatever winter and the first hail left behind. A fall inspection makes sure you’re tight before the wetter months. For most aging San Antonio homes, that spring and fall rhythm is the sweet spot.
What the industry standard actually says
Worth knowing that the floor most contractors quote is softer than the published standard. The National Roofing Contractors Association recommends homeowners and building owners schedule inspections at least twice per year, in the spring and the fall, plus an additional inspection after any severe weather. Not once. Twice, regardless of the roof’s age.
Their reasoning is written for a colder climate, checking for winter damage in spring and prepping for snow load in fall. Out here the calendar does the same work for different reasons. Spring follows our hail months. Fall gets you sealed up before the wetter stretch.
So why do we say once a year is an acceptable floor on a newer roof? Honestly, because it’s the recommendation people will actually follow, and a roof that gets looked at once a year is in far better shape than the one that gets looked at never. If you’ll do twice, do twice. The NRCA isn’t wrong.
Inspection frequency by roof age
Age changes the answer more than material does. Here’s the rhythm that makes sense for a San Antonio asphalt roof.
| Roof age | How often | What’s actually being looked for |
|---|---|---|
| Years 0 to 2 | Once a year, and don’t skip these | Installation errors, while the contractor is still obligated to fix them |
| Years 3 to 9 | Once a year | Sealant and flashing wear, storm hits, ventilation problems |
| Years 10 to 15 | Twice a year, spring and fall | Brittleness, granule loss, failing seals at penetrations |
| Year 15 onward | Twice a year, plus after every storm | End of life signals, decking softness, whether repair still makes sense |
| Any age, after hail or high wind | Within days, not months | Bruising and lifted edges that hide for months |
Two notes on that table. Tile and metal are more durable and can stretch a bit longer between professional checks. And the years 0 to 2 row is the one homeowners skip almost universally, which is the next section.
Your roof has deadlines on it, and an inspection is how you catch them
This is the part nobody tells homeowners, and it’s the strongest argument for a schedule.
If your roof is covered by a GAF Golden Pledge Limited Warranty, that document carries hard clocks. Real ones, with dates. We pulled what follows straight from the sample warranty GAF publishes rather than from somebody’s summary of it.
You have to notify GAF within 30 days after you notice a problem. That’s the language. Not 30 days after the roof fails, 30 days after you notice. Which sounds generous until you sit with it. If nobody ever gets on the roof, nobody ever notices, and a covered manufacturing defect can quietly sit there aging out of any practical remedy while the warranty technically still runs.
Don’t fix it before you report it. GAF’s terms say that if you repair or replace the products before you notify them, or before they’ve finished evaluating, your claim may be denied. So the sequence matters. Document, report, then repair.
There’s a two year installation window. If an application error is discovered or discoverable within the first two years after installation, GAF’s terms put the obligation on your Master Elite contractor to make the repairs. After that window it gets more complicated. This is precisely why the years 0 to 2 inspections matter on a roof that looks perfect. You’re not hunting for wear. You’re confirming the install was right while somebody is still clearly on the hook for it.
And notice to your contractor is not notice to GAF. Telling us doesn’t start your clock with the manufacturer. That one catches people.
One important distinction, because homeowners mix these up constantly. Hail and high wind damage are not warranty items. GAF’s exclusions list acts of nature, including hail and winds over the covered speed, along with foreign object impact and inadequate ventilation. Storm damage is an insurance matter. Manufacturing and installation defects are a warranty matter. Two different clocks, two different processes, and an inspection is what tells you which one you’re actually in.
Not a GAF roof? The specifics above are GAF’s. But every shingle manufacturer runs some version of the same structure, a reporting window and a set of exclusions, and the numbers differ by company. Go find your warranty paperwork and read the claims section before you need it. That fifteen minutes is worth more than most of the maintenance advice on the internet.
After a storm, the calendar doesn’t apply
After hail, straight line wind, or a heavy storm, get the roof looked at even if it looks fine from the driveway. Storm damage is rarely obvious from the ground. Bruised shingles, cracked seals, and lifted edges can sit up there for months before the first drip shows up inside, and by then the decking’s been wet the whole time.
There’s a clock on this one too. Insurance carriers want damage documented within a tight window after the storm, and a fast inspection protects both the roof and the claim. We put together the photos and the written documentation that support your claim. Filing it stays your call.
If a storm just came through, our storm damage inspection guide walks through what to check and in what order.
What you can check yourself between inspections
You can do part of it yourself, and you should. A walk around the house with a pair of binoculars, a look in the attic with a flashlight after a big rain, a glance in the gutters. That kind of ground level check is genuinely useful and it costs you nothing but a few minutes.
Some things mean don’t wait for the next scheduled check. Missing, cracked, or curling shingles. A pile of granules at the bottom of a downspout, which means the shingles are shedding their protective layer. Water stains on a ceiling or an upstairs wall. A sagging spot in the roofline, or daylight showing through the attic boards. A jump in the cooling bill can mean the attic isn’t holding heat out the way it should.
What you shouldn’t do is climb up there. Most roofing falls are homeowners, not roofers. And the things that actually matter are hard to read without knowing what you’re looking at. A soft spot in the decking, a flashing detail that’s about to fail, hail bruising that hasn’t opened up yet. Nine times out of ten a homeowner walks a roof and sees nothing. The early signals genuinely don’t look like anything.
Get your free 27-point inspection from BH Roofing
The roof you never look at is the one that surprises you. A yearly check, twice yearly once it has age on it, plus one after every real storm. That’s the whole game. It’s how you trade a surprise five figure repair for a known, cheap, scheduled one.
BH Roofing does a free 27-point roof inspection for San Antonio homeowners, with photos and an honest written report. Our crew checks the whole system, not just the parts you can see, and tells you straight what it needs. If you want to know what that costs elsewhere and what “free” usually means in this market, we broke that down in roof inspection cost in San Antonio. If you want the step by step of what happens when we’re up there, that’s what happens during a roof inspection.
Call BH Roofing at (210) 267-9029 to set one up. If a storm just hit and you think there’s damage, that’s an emergency, and we respond within 24 hours.
