Effects of Roof Age on Asphalt Shingle Performance During High Wind Events

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Abstract

This manuscript aims to examine whether roof age affects the level of roof cover damage observed under relatively similar hurricane wind speeds. This manuscript reports the results of an observational study of damaged asphalt roof shingles after Hurricane Laura in 2020. Damage to roof covers was subjectively estimated in percentage ranges through the use of post-hurricane aerial imagery, while roof age was estimated using roof cover damage from Hurricane Rita in 2005 or the year built after 2005, using readily available online databases. Results show that age is a clear factor in the level of roof cover damage for areas of similar peak wind speeds obtained from estimates of the wind field (i.e., H*Wind). A 'break' in age is found to occur centered around the 8-year mark, where damage notably increases. However, this value should be interpreted as an empirical breakpoint in this dataset rather than a general threshold. Investigating other factors, such as roof shape, shows relationships with age as well, including older hip roofs sustaining notably more damage than the gable or complex (i.e., combination of features) roofs of the same age. These findings provide field data as evidence of the effects of roof age and highlight the need for future studies to isolate roof age from other factors such as construction quality, maintenance history, geometry, exposure, and other confounding factors.

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Keywords

Windstorm impact reduction, Resilient materials and Disaster and failure studies

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