Storm damage
Hail & Wind Damage Repair
The damage you can see is the glass and the screens. The damage you cannot see is the seals, and it will not show itself for months.
- Assessment
- Whole elevation, not one window
- Securing
- Same visit where needed
- Documentation
- Written and photographed
- Glass
- Measured, then fitted
The drive is the job
One storm, one visit, the whole elevation
Hail and wind do not damage one window. They damage a side of a building, and in Montana that side may be forty miles from the nearest glazier. Sending somebody out to look at a single broken pane and then again for everything else is how a storm repair doubles in cost.
So we assess the whole affected elevation on the first visit — glass, screens, frames, seals and hardware — secure anything that is open, and quote the lot together. That is both cheaper for you and more useful to an insurer.
It also catches the damage that is easy to miss. A hailstone can strike a pane hard enough to compromise the perimeter seal of a sealed unit without cracking the glass. Nothing looks wrong at the time. The window fogs up some months later, long after a claim has closed.
On the truck
What rides on the truck for storm work
Storm calls are rarely tidy. This is what lets us close a building and assess it properly on the first trip.
| What we carry | Why it is on board |
|---|---|
| Board-up material and fixings | Properly fixed into framing, sealed at the edges, and removable without wrecking your casing. Not tape and sheeting. |
| Window film and sheeting | For openings where boarding is not appropriate or where securing needs to be temporary and light. |
| Screen mesh and spline | Hail puts holes through screens across a whole elevation. Most of it is rescreened on the spot. |
| Replacement clips, latches and keepers | Wind works hardware loose and bends it. Small parts, carried in quantity. |
| Glass measuring and safety kit | Because cut-to-size glass follows on a second visit and getting the measurement right first time is the whole job. |
| Camera and documentation forms | Photographed as found, before anything is cleared or covered, because that is the only record an adjuster will see. |
Make the trip count
What to do before we arrive
The first hour after a storm is mostly about safety and evidence. None of it needs a contractor.
Photograph everything as found
Wide shots and close shots, before anything is moved or covered. Once an opening is cleared, that record is gone and an adjuster has nothing to work from.
Walk the whole elevation, not just the obvious window
Look for pitting on screens, chips in glass, dents in flashing and bent frames. Make a list and we will check all of it.
Stay off ladders
More people are hurt after a storm than during it, usually fixing a tarp in wind. If it is above ground level, it waits.
Note the date and time of the storm
It matters a great deal when a claim is assessed later, particularly if more than one system came through in a season.
Check the outbuildings
Shops, barns and garages take the same hail as the house and nobody looks at them for months. Add them to the list now.
What Montana does to it
What hail and wind actually do here
Montana gets both, often in the same afternoon, and they damage different things.
Hail that breaks and hail that does not
Eastern and central Montana see damaging hail most years. Large stones crack glass and punch screens; smaller ones pit and chip, and they can shock a sealed unit's perimeter seal without leaving a visible mark on the pane.
Wind pressure on large glazing
Montana wind reaches speeds that most of the country associates with storms, and it does so routinely in places like Livingston and along the Front. Large patio and picture glass flexes under that load, and any seal that was marginal fails.
Wind-driven debris
On open ground with no shelter there is a great deal of loose material available — gravel, branches, equipment, roofing. Most wind damage to glass here is something hitting it rather than the wind itself.
Delayed seal failure
The one most people miss. A pane that survived the storm intact can fog up three or six months later because the seal took the hit. By then nobody connects it to the storm, and the claim has usually closed.
Frames and fasteners worked loose
Sustained wind loosens screws, bends screen frames and racks lighter assemblies. It rarely breaks anything outright, which is exactly why it goes unnoticed until something else fails.
By building
The buildings we work in
After a storm each of these needs a different approach to securing and assessment.
Log and timber homes
Log walls settle vertically for years after they go up, and the windows and doors in them need slip space above the frame to allow for it. Where that space was never left, or has been filled with trim and foam over the years, the opening slowly crushes the unit. A door that will not latch in a log home is often the building moving, not the hardware failing.
Ranch and outbuildings
Shops, barns, bunkhouses and equipment buildings with hardware that has to work in weather and gets no attention until it stops. Usually simple assemblies, usually repairable, and usually a long way from anybody who would come out for them.
In-town housing
Billings, Missoula, Butte, Helena and Great Falls hold a great deal of early-century stock — weight-and-pulley sash, putty glazing and original storm windows — plus post-war and modern suburbs where balances and sealed units fail together.
Manufactured homes
Common across rural Montana. Lightweight aluminium or vinyl frames, out-swing doors and sizes that match nothing in a store. We have a separate page for these because the parts and the advice are genuinely different.
Questions
Hail and wind questions
The glass looks fine after the hail. Should I bother?
Yes, have it looked at. Seals can be compromised without the pane cracking, and that shows up as fogging months later when it is much harder to link to the storm.
Can you secure an opening the same day?
Where we can reach you, yes. Securing comes before anything else and it is what actually protects the building.
Can you glaze straight away?
Rarely. Glass is cut to the opening, and after a regional storm the whole area is ordering at once. We measure on the first visit and give you an honest date.
Do you help with insurance claims?
We document what we find and what we do, and provide itemised quotes and invoices formatted to submit. We are not adjusters and will not advise on your policy.
Our outbuildings got hit too.
Add them to the list. Same trip, same drive, and a fraction of the cost of a separate visit.
Do you cover eastern Montana?
Yes. We plan routes across the state rather than treating distance as a reason to say no.
Coverage
Hail and wind damage repair across Montana
A mobile service covering the whole state. Pick your town below, or call and we will plan a route to you.
Hail & Wind Damage Repair Across Montana
Related
Other repairs we handle
Windows and doors are the whole business, so whatever has failed, it is on this list — and it can go on the same visit.
Next step
Get the whole elevation looked at
Free assessments across Montana, with everything quoted together.