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Hail Damage to Siding

Siding plays a vital role in protecting your home from the elements and ensuring that it stays in its best possible condition. After a hailstorm, it is especially crucial to make sure that your home stays protected and doesn’t suffer subtle and long-lasting damage from the elements and additional adverse weather events. When it comes to hail damage, siding, and your roofing system can be affected.

Hail is a fairly common weather occurrence, and your siding will likely encounter a few hail storms throughout its lifetime. Siding hail damage is common and often overlooked until secondary problems become apparent.

Hail can cause obvious visual damage to your home’s siding, but what is often overlooked is the underlying damage that hail can cause that is not as easy to visually pick up and address. Aside from structural damage to your home’s protective materials, underlying damage from hail can cause water to enter your roofing and siding system, which can result in a host of problems that can be costly to repair. These problems often compound over time and can harm the structural integrity of your home.

How To Spot Hail Damage on Siding

Despite hail’s destructive nature, it can be difficult to identify damage caused by hail to your siding, especially with an untrained eye. Obvious signs of hail damage may be easy to pick up, but it is much more difficult to identify hail damage that has caused larger underlying damage to your home’s protective materials, which have the potential to compound into larger-scale problems.

A good starting point is to begin with inspecting your home for signs of a hailstorm and searching your property for clues. Things such as broken branches, debris that has landed on your property, your home’s roof, or your siding are all clues that a hailstorm may have occurred, and your siding may be at risk of damage.

It is always a good idea to have your property thoroughly inspected if you suspect that it has sustained hail damage. This is because a trained professional will be able to identify much more damage (especially underlying damage sustained to your siding and its layers) than an ordinary inspection with an untrained eye would. An inspection is crucial in identifying if the hailstorm has caused significant damage to your siding where water has been allowed to enter, causing potential problems with leaks, dampness, and rot, which can be costly to repair if left unattended.

This is where Aegis Construction can help – we offer a free inspection, which will give you peace of mind that your home and property have been thoroughly examined so that the best course of action and repair can be taken.

 

siding hail damage

Common Signs of Hail Damaged Siding

There are some common things to keep an eye out for that can give you a clue that hail damage has occurred to your home. If you notice any of these signs, it is good practice to have an inspection conducted on your siding to determine the extent of the hail damage that has been sustained.

Hail commonly damages your roofing system, and problems are often picked up on the roofing system without also realizing that the siding of the home may be damaged as well. Even more so, if your roof took a lot of hail damage, there is a good chance that your siding sustained the same level of damage. Siding damage as a result of hail is less obvious than roof damage, and siding is often overlooked when it comes to inspecting for hail damage. However, a broken siding panel can allow water into the structural parts of your home, resulting in large-scale damage.

Siding damage looks different on different types of siding material, so it is best to know what to look out for on each type of material.

 

Hail Damage on Wood Siding

Wood siding is both aesthetically pleasing as well as durable. Although it requires a little more maintenance, wood siding is extremely hard-wearing. However, wood siding is not impervious to hail damage. It may be a lot more difficult to spot hail damage on wood siding, but with a thorough inspection, it can be picked up before long-term problems have a chance to appear.

Hail damage on wood siding often appears as cracks that are darker than the surrounding wood or as dents. Although harder to spot, hail damage on wood siding can cause tiny holes, which allow water to seep in slowly, ultimately resulting in larger-scale damage as it progresses.  

 

Hail Damage on Vinyl Siding

Vinyl is one of the more durable materials for siding to be made of and offers many positives, such as resistance to UV rays and pests, and its variety of cosmetic options. However, although vinyl siding is much more durable, it is not immune to hail damage either.

Things to look out for are peeling paint, chips, cracks, and dents in your siding. It is important to note minor damage that may only seem cosmetic because minor damage may exacerbate and lead to major problems with siding, which can affect the insulation and general protection of your home that your siding offers.

what does hail damage look like on a siding

Factors That Influence Hail Damage Extent

There are various factors that can influence how badly your home is damaged by a hailstorm. Hail alone doesn’t need to be the only thing that causes damage in a hailstorm. Hail is often accompanied by strong winds, which can increase the amount of damage your home sustains. Combined with other factors on your property, damage sustained to your home from hail can be worsened.

 

Wind Speed

Often accompanying hailstorms, strong winds can wreak havoc on the integrity of your siding, loosening panels and allowing water and hailstones to penetrate the underlying layers that protect your home. Water getting through loose siding panels can lead to larger problems, such as rot, mold, and dampness.

 

Passable access

Homes that experience the worst damage from hailstorms are those that don’t have any barriers surrounding them. Objects such as trees can slow down hailstones before they make contact with your siding or roof and can minimize the amount of damage your home sustains during a hailstorm. However, if your home doesn’t have these objects to act as barriers, it could be more vulnerable to the full force of hailstones during a storm.  

 

Hailstone Size

It goes without saying that a larger hailstone size will do much more damage compared to a smaller hailstone. However, it is important to remember that even small hailstones can significantly damage your siding, as they are often accompanied by strong gusts of wind. In addition, many hailstorms with small stones can do just as much damage as one hailstorm with large hailstones – your siding being repeatedly pummeled by hailstones will eventually take a toll and could cause damage to your siding.

 

What To Do After a Hailstorm

After your home is subjected to a hailstorm, there are several steps you can follow to quickly detect any damage you may have sustained and to minimize the progression of underlying damage, such as water seepage.

 

Get Your Siding Inspected

We have emphasized that an inspection is crucial in ensuring that your property is correctly assessed for any damage so that appropriate action can be taken.

An inspection is also required if you wish to claim from your insurance for any damage that your property has sustained during a hailstorm. It is important to have a thorough inspection to ensure that all damage and resulting problems are identified so that they can be repaired timeously.

This is where Aegis Construction can help. Contact us for a free inspection.

 

Check Your Insurance Policy

It is always a good idea to check your insurance policy to be sure of what is covered. In most cases, damage caused by adverse weather events such as hailstorms is covered by your homeowner’s insurance.

Aegis Construction can also assist in the insurance claims process through inspection, as well as accompanying the insurance adjuster to your property to ensure that all the correct repairs that need to be made are documented.

 

Contact a Trusted Siding Contractor

As a long-trusted roof and siding contractor, Aegis Construction Group is who you need to call when you need any repair or replacement of your siding.

Aegis Construction will give you the best advice on materials and repairs and can even provide guidance on a full siding replacement, should it be required. Our expert staff will help you along every step of your siding repair or replacement and can work closely in conjunction with your insurance company.

Aegis Construction is a well-established and trusted roofing and siding contractor, with our emphasis being on quality craftsmanship and customer satisfaction.

Key Takeaways

A hailstorm has great potential to do serious damage to your property, especially your roofing system and siding. Hail can also cause a lot more than just cosmetic damage, but can cause problems that are difficult to identify and that can progress to more serious damage as they are left to progress.

For this reason, it is extremely important to have your property thoroughly inspected after a hailstorm, to ensure that all damage is identified and repaired as quickly as possible before it can progress to more serious and costly damage.

Aegis Construction is a leading and trusted siding and roofing contractor and can assist with everything from inspections to the insurance claims process, as well as repairs and replacements to your siding. Contact us today for any help you may require. 

 

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what does hail damage look like on vinyl siding