Test square
Definition
- Related pages
- 5
- Last revised
- 23 August 2026
A test square is the sampling area a roof inspector chalks out on a slope, by convention ten feet on a side, inside which every hail mark is examined and counted. Each hit is classified as functional or cosmetic, and the count of functional hits per square is the figure an estimate is written from: a slope with few hits is repaired, a slope with many is replaced, and the threshold between the two is a carrier's guideline rather than a law. A square is usually drawn on each slope, because hail is directional and the windward face takes more.
The convention exists so that two inspectors looking at the same roof are counting the same thing, and it is one of the few parts of a hail inspection that is genuinely comparable across the parties. It is also where most inspections diverge, because what counts as a hit is a judgement, and a square placed on the worst of a slope will count differently from one placed at random.
The square measures the roof; the record measures the storm. A high count in a square on a date with nothing on record near the property is a count that needs another explanation, and a low count on a date with large hail measured nearby is not evidence that the hail did not fall. The two are read together, and each keeps the other honest.
In the report
How the document prints it
No test square appears in the report, which describes the storm and not the roof. Where the two meet is in the dates and sizes: the Records list each hail report near the address with its size as measured on the ground or detected and not measured, its distance and bearing from the address and its date, and the Storm map draws the hail swath over the property so a reader can see which slopes faced the storm's approach. An inspector's squares are read against that, and the report says nothing about what they should find.
Related
The terms this page uses and the guides that go further. Each is shown against its own example from the record.
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Term
Bruising
A soft, sometimes fractured spot in an asphalt shingle where a hailstone struck and displaced granules, the mark inspectors look for first.
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Term
Functional damage
Damage that shortens the service life or impairs the water-shedding of a roof covering, as distinct from damage to its appearance.
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Term
Soft metals
The thin metal surfaces on a property, such as vents, flashing and gutters, that dent readily and are read as a gauge of whether and how hard hail fell.
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Term
Hail size
The diameter of the largest hailstone at a place, reported in inches or by the named object on the spotter chart it was compared with.
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Guide
Which storm caused it: attributing damage across several storm days
Most roofs in the hail belt have been under more than one storm, and a claim is rarely argued against a blank record. It is argued against the other days: the one before the policy began, the one the last carrier paid, the one nobody noticed. This guide sets out what the law asks when storms compete for the same damage, how an appraisal panel reads the record, and why the calendar has to be on the table before the argument starts.
Sources
The primary references. Each opens on the agency's own site.
The glossary defines the word. The report is what uses it.
Everything above is definition: what the word means in the document, and what it does not. None of it says what reached one roof.
Run the address and the archive is searched at the property: the storm, the date, the measured size, the distance and bearing from the roof, and the federal record each figure came from, in a document that states its own method. Ready in minutes.
How this page is made
- The text
- Written by the editors and last revised 23 August 2026. It explains the record and how the report reads it; it contains no figure of its own.
- The example
- The archive holds nothing this page could show yet, so no example is printed. One appears, computed rather than written, as soon as the record holds a relevant day.
- Measured and detected
- A report from a person or an instrument is measured. A radar-derived size is detected, not measured, and is marked as such, here and in every document we issue. The two are never added together.
- What this is not
- A definition of a word the report uses. It is not a report on any property, and it states no opinion about one. The coverage page states what the record holds, by kind and by year.
About this record
Everything here is reproduced from public federal and volunteer weather records, as the agencies and observer networks that publish them released it. Titan Weather compiles the record; it does not observe the weather, and it is not affiliated with any source it cites.
No archive holds everything. Storms cross places where nobody is standing, instruments and observers cover some areas better than others, sources revise their records, and recent reports can take weeks to arrive and settle. Coverage also thins as the years go back: an early quiet stretch may describe who was watching rather than what the weather did. Where this page shows nothing, nothing was found in the sources searched, within the period and area it states. That is not a finding that no weather occurred.
A record sits where its source filed it. Reports made from the ground are commonly logged against a town, a landmark or an offset from one rather than the spot where the measurement was taken, so any distance shown for one carries that source's own location error. Radar detections and warning geometry are instrument-located and do not.
These pages describe the public record near a place or on a date. They do not establish what reached any particular property, and nothing here is insurance, legal or engineering advice.