A Homeowner's Guide To Window Hail Damage

28 May 2020
 Categories: Home & Garden, Blog

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When most people think of hail damage, their first thoughts go to the roof. Unfortunately, hail can damage much more than your roof; your windows may also suffer. Window hail damage tends to be concentrated on one side of the home, typically the side that received the brunt of the storm as it blew in. The following guide can help you better understand your repair options if your windows suffered hail damage.

Broken Panes

The most obvious type of damage is broken panes or cracked glass. Fortunately, this damage can be quickly repaired if the window is made of a single pane and the frame is intact. Your window repair technician will begin by carefully removing bits of broken glass from the frame, along with all of the adhesive that held the glass in place. They will then fit a new piece of glass into the frame and seal it in place. If the damage occurred to double- or triple-paned windows, you will need to decide whether to simply have the broken glass removed and replaced with a single pane or to replace the entire insulated window unit.

Frame Damage

Vinyl and metal frames are more likely to experience hail damage. Metal becomes dented, which is typically only an aesthetic issue, whereas vinyl frames can crack or have holes punched in them by the hailstones. A window repair tech may be able to hammer out dents in metal, but damaged vinyl frames require replacement. Wood frames can also be cracked by larger hail, but these damages are easily repaired with wood putty and a fresh coat of paint.

Loose Glazing

Sometimes the glass isn't broken, but it is knocked loose in the frame. For a single-pane window, your repair tech will scrape out the old glazing adhesive and then replace it with new adhesive so that the glass is secured. If the window is an insulated double- or triple-pane unit, you will be given the choice to have the glass reglazed or to replace the window unit. The issue is that once the seal is broken, insulated windows lose a lot of their insulating qualities. Condensation can also start to build up between the glass layers. If you aren't concerned about the loss of insulation, the repair tech can drill a small hole in one corner of the window after reglazing, which allows condensation to escape.

Contact a residential window glass repair service for more assistance.

To learn more, visit a website like https://kcglassinc.com/.