Chinook Winds — What They Do to Roofs, Fences and Gutters

Anyone who has spent a winter here knows the feeling: a February morning that starts at fifteen degrees and reaches the sixties by afternoon, with wind roaring down off the foothills the entire time. Chinook winds are one of the genuinely pleasant features of Front Range winters, and they are also hard on the outside of your house.

Why we get them

Air pushed over the mountains descends the eastern slope, compressing and warming as it drops. The result is warm, dry, fast-moving air arriving at the base of the range — which is exactly where Colorado Springs sits. The western side of the city, from Mountain Shadows through Rockrimmon and Skyway, takes it hardest, and the open ground east toward Falcon and Peyton gets sustained wind for different reasons.

Wind damage is cumulative, not dramatic

The mental picture is a tree through a roof. That happens, but it is rare. The far more common pattern is small and repeated: a shingle lifts slightly, the sealant strip that bonds it to the course below breaks, and it never re-seals. It looks fine from the street. The next wind gets underneath it more easily than the last one did, and eventually water gets under there too.

This is why the roof that "was fine last year" starts leaking after an unremarkable storm. The failure was in progress for several seasons.

What to check after a significant wind event

Roof, from the ground with binoculars:

• Shingles that look lifted, curled or out of line
• Missing shingles, especially along ridges and hips where wind pressure is highest
• Ridge cap displacement
• Debris in the yard that was previously attached to the house

Gutters:

• Sections pulled away from the fascia
• Downspouts detached or blown out of alignment
• Gutter guards lifted or displaced

Fencing:

• Posts that have loosened at the base — push on them
• Panels racked out of square
• Anything leaning that was previously plumb

Fencing takes the worst of it in the newer east-side neighbourhoods, where long unbroken runs of privacy fence act as a sail with nothing to break the wind.

Everything else:

• Siding, particularly loose or rattling panels
• Trim and fascia boards
• Vent caps and flashing
• Trees with cracked limbs or a visible lean that was not there before

Preventative work that pays

• Keep trees pruned back from the roof and the power drop. Do it before wind season, not after a limb comes down.
• Fix small roof issues promptly. A handful of shingles re-sealed is cheap; the leak that follows two years of neglect is not.
• Check fence posts annually and reset the loose ones before they take the whole section with them.
• Secure the loose stuff. Trampolines, patio umbrellas, empty bins and shade sails all become projectiles, and they usually hit your own house first.

On insurance

Wind damage is generally a covered peril, but the pattern of gradual, cumulative wear is exactly what gets denied as maintenance. Documenting your roof's condition with dated photographs periodically — genuinely useful, rarely done — puts you in a much stronger position to show that damage followed a specific event.