Siding, Gutter and Window Hail Damage

Vinyl siding cracks and punctures under hail, and the damage often appears on one elevation only because hail arrives at an angle. The cracks are frequently hairline and hard to see straight on - the reliable way to find them is to look along the wall from the side in raking light, which makes every break cast a shadow. Aluminum siding dents rather than cracks and shows the impact obviously. On either material the difficulty is usually matching: vinyl colors fade and older profiles get discontinued, and a partial repair can leave a wall that clearly does not match the rest of the house. That is the matching question again, and it belongs in the claim conversation.

Gutter faces and downspout elbows are the first surfaces we photograph on any hail inspection, because they dent visibly and they date the storm. But they are also damage in their own right, not merely evidence. A dented gutter with a deformed profile no longer carries water the way it was designed to, and aluminum fascia and window wraps that have been pocked are both a cosmetic and a weathering problem. These are real line items and they get skipped constantly.

Window screens tear and their frames bend. Wood and vinyl window trim gets bruised and cracked. Garage doors, being a large flat expanse of thin steel facing the street, dent dramatically and are one of the more expensive individual items on a hail claim. None of these are exotic - they are just not on the roof, so nobody looks at them.

The condenser sitting beside the house has an exposed aluminum fin coil, and hail flattens those fins. Flattened fins restrict airflow across the coil, which makes the unit work harder, run longer and use more electricity, and it shortens the compressor's life. It is genuinely functional damage and it is claimable. Fin combing can restore some units; badly damaged coils need replacement. Either way it should be in the scope, and on most first-pass adjuster estimates it is not.