Hail damage and your paint: what to do first.

The order that matters

There is one rule and it is simple. Document first, paint second.

Repainting an exterior is the single most effective way to erase the evidence of hail damage. Do it before a claim is assessed and you have handed an adjuster a freshly coated wall and a verbal description of what used to be there.

Photographs cost nothing. Take them even if you are not sure you will file.

Inspecting properly

Most people look at the front of the house. Hail arrives at an angle driven by the storm, and on the Front Range the north and west elevations usually take the worst of it. Walk all four sides.

Then look at the soft things first, because they register damage before siding does:

• Window screens. Dented or torn screens are often the clearest early evidence.
• Fascia and trim. Splintering along edges and ends. Easy to miss and it is where water gets in.
• Soft metal. Gutters, downspouts, vents, flashing, and the air conditioner fins round the back.
• Mailboxes, grills, garden furniture. Not part of a claim on the house, but useful corroboration that a storm actually hit.
• Deck boards and railings. Horizontal surfaces take direct impact.

Only after that look at the siding field itself, in raking light if you can, early or late in the day when low sun throws shadows into shallow dents.

What hail does to each material

Where claims go wrong

1. Repainting before assessment. The big one. It erases the evidence.
2. Only inspecting the front. Damage concentrates on the storm-facing elevations.
3. Waiting too long. Policies have time limits for reporting, and they are shorter than people assume.
4. Treating it as cosmetic. Pitting holds water and cracks are an entry path. Neither stays cosmetic.
5. No written scope. A description is weaker than a document that separates repair from repaint by elevation.

What a painter can and cannot do

We can photograph and document what is visible, elevation by elevation, and provide a written scope that distinguishes substrate repair from repainting. That is useful to an adjuster and it costs you nothing.

We cannot tell you what your policy covers, negotiate with your insurer, or act as a public adjuster. Anyone in a painting truck who offers to do those things is operating outside their lane, and in Colorado there are rules about contractors and insurance claims worth being aware of.

If you are paying out of pocket

Plenty of damage sits below a deductible. The sequence is identical: repair the substrate, prime everything bare, then coat. Painting straight over pitted and cracked siding looks fine for a season or two and then does not.