Hail on Your Garage Door Needs Its Own Photo File Before Winter

Hail that cracks a shingle often hits the garage door at the same time, and the door is the part most homeowners never look at. Steel garage doors are flat, wide, and painted, so a hailstone that bounces off the roof can leave a round dent in a door panel without breaking anything. Many dents are only cosmetic. Others are not, because a dent on a sandwich panel can bend the edge where two sections lock together, and a torn seam lets air and water into the gap. This page is for the St. Louis homeowner who has a storm date, a roof to deal with, and a door with new marks on it that nobody has told them how to read.

Storm and hail

Most steel garage doors are built from insulated sections. Each section has a steel skin on the outside, a steel skin on the inside, and foam between them, with the edges sealed. Hail finds the flat face of each section first. A small dent in the middle of a panel is often only a finish problem. A dent that sits on a seam, or a dent with a crease running out of it, is more likely to have bent the interlock between sections. When you stand inside the garage with the lights off and the door closed, look for daylight at the seams. Any light you can see is a gap that will let air and water in during winter.

Check the weatherstrip along the bottom and along both sides as well. Hail can knock the bottom seal loose or split it, and a torn seal shows up as a line of light at the floor. The seal is a cheap part compared with a panel, and it is often the place where the most water comes in. A seal that is only pushed out of place can sometimes be reseated, but a split seal needs to be replaced before the first hard rain.

Photograph the door the same way you photograph the roof. Stand at the end of the driveway with the door fully closed and take one wide photo of the whole face. Then take close shots of each dent, with a coin or a tape measure beside it for scale. Do the same for the inside face of the door, because a hard hit can push the steel out so that the bulge shows on the inside first. Keep the original files with their date stamps, and keep them in a folder that is not on the roofer's phone or in the truck. If the storm date is known, the date on your photos is the simplest record of when the mark appeared.

The reason to do this before the weather turns is that a door with a split seam or a torn bottom seal will look fine in October. In January, the freeze pushes water into the gap, the water refreezes, and the door starts to stick on the track or the opener starts to strain. By then the cause is harder to separate from the storm, and the photos from the first week will be the only clean record of how the door looked before the cold got to it.

A garage door also takes a different kind of impact from the roof. A roof shingle takes the hit on its face, while a door takes it across a wide, flat section, and the track on each side has to hold that section square. Hail alone rarely bends a track out of line, but a heavy hit on the door's top section can push the rollers out of the track. Look at the track on both sides for a bend, a gap, or a roller that has jumped out. Do not force the door open or closed to test it. If the door moves unevenly, leave it closed, take a photo of the track, and call for a look before the next use.

What it costs

Garage door repair cost depends on how many sections are damaged, whether the damage is on a face or on a seam, what the door is built from, and whether the impact reached the track, the springs, or the opener. One dented panel on a standard steel door is a different job from a door with three sections bent and the track out of line. There is no single figure that covers every case, so the only number worth comparing is the one written against each item on the quote.

Ask for each line to be separate. A panel replacement, a weatherstrip replacement, a track adjustment, and an opener check are four different items with four different reasons. If a quote lumps them into one figure, you cannot tell which part is storm damage and which part was already wearing out before the hail. A single line that reads repairs to door is not a scope, and it will be hard to check against the photos later.

Also ask whether the panel is still made in that design. Garage door manufacturers change panel profiles and colors over the years, and a discontinued panel can mean that the damaged sections cannot be matched. In that case the choice may come down to a full door replacement, which is a larger decision than a repair and should be made on paper with the numbers in front of you.

Keys documents the roof and the parts the roof work touches, and puts a written scope with photos and measurements in the homeowner's hands. The garage door is often handled by a different trade, and a roof estimate should say so in writing instead of leaving the door out without a word. If the roof crew will be working around the door, ask them to note the door's condition in the scope before they set up, so the door's starting condition is on paper too.

What to ask

Before you sign anything for the door, ask these questions and get the answers in writing:

1. Did you photograph the inside face of the door as well as the outside?
2. Is the damage on a panel face, or on a seam between two panels?
3. Is the bottom seal split, and does the quote replace it or only reseat it?
4. Is the track still square on both sides, and was it checked after the impact?
5. Are the opener and the springs listed on the quote, or left out of it?
6. Does the quote name the panel size and the door model, so a replacement can be matched?
7. Who will be at the door on the day the work is done, and who signs off on it?

If you file a claim on the garage door under your homeowner policy, that claim is yours to handle with your own insurer. Missouri law (RSMo 407.725) bars a roofing contractor from representing or negotiating a homeowner's insurance claim, so a roofer's part is to document the damage, hand you the written scope and the photos, and attend as the contractor while you deal with your insurer. Keep your own copy of every photo and every page of the quote, because your insurer will ask for the same record you have.

When you are ready to have the roof and the attached parts looked at, call (314) 220-2333 or book through (314) 220-2333. Bring the photo file with you, so the inspection starts from the same record you already made.