Colorado Hail Storm

MarkoPolo · 08-03-2013, 10:22 PM

Well, it's been years since we have had a destructive hail storm, this afternoon our luck ran out! Near golf ball sized hail for about 10-15 minutes and then smaller hail and torrential rain for nearly an hour. Flower and vegetable garden pretty well flattened--SUV and truck in the garage....Trailmanor 2922KD out in the yard. Luckily next to cottonwood tree that was somewhat of a shield as the storm came from that direction. Good sized dents on the top front of the trailer. Surprisingly, the vents were not shattered but all the light covers underneath were knocked off, including the one in front of the bed. It was still raining, so I haven't been able to see the roof yet ( the trailer is up), but it seems the damage is only cosmetic. Still, it hurts to see dings in your new toy!! Could have been worse, there was a tornado touch down less than a mile away. Not sure about an insurance claim, as there is no way to "repair" the dents. Might affect trade value down the road, but for now I choose to look at it under the "stuff happens" part of life.
Mark

TrailManorMan · 08-04-2013, 07:42 AM

Glad it wasn't worse, sounds bad enough though.

Redtail Cruiser · 08-04-2013, 09:09 AM

Mark, you may want to look into paintless dent repair. Those guys may be able to repair or improve the look of your hail damage.

MarkoPolo · 08-04-2013, 11:30 AM

Thanks for the replies. I was able to get on an 8 ft. ladder and use a squeegee to clean all the leaves and branches off the top. Looks kind of like the surface of a giant golf ball

. However, there is no damage to to solar panel (I woke up in the middle of the night worrying about that) and the skylights, antenna and air conditioner seem undamaged. The solar panel controls show a normal charge of 13.4 volts. So, really it's only cosmetic damage as far as I know for now. A mile one way and I wouldn't have had any damage. A few miles another and I would have had tennis ball sized hail----purely luck of the draw. I feel really lucky having seen far worse hail damage in my life--grew up in the Texas panhandle and there have been some epic hail storms along the Colorado front range ( I replaced three roofs in 4 years back in the '70's).
I watched dent masters remove a door ding from my SUV and basically they gain access to the inside of a panel through existing holes or they make one to gain access. Don't think that would would work with Trailmanor's laminate construction.
Thanks again for the replies.
Mark

MarkoPolo · 08-04-2013, 04:30 PM

A little follow up...Yesterday I thought about removing a cottonwood branch that had to be lifted to completely open the door. My DW suggested that branch might protect the sky lights/vents if a storm hit. That is exactly the reason they aren't broken. Moral of that story...always listen to your better half...they are way smarter than you!!

08-04-2013, 06:42 PM

We just had the hard rain and lots of noise! I've got a big cottonwood tree that I park under (sap is a problem once a year so have some spots on top) but it certainly provides some protection. You might try some dry ice on the dents - I've used it on small dents on a car - use gloves and just place it over the dent. Worth a try - our Walmart carries the dry ice. Sure glad it wasn't worse. We've had some flooding in the Springs area, but so far Fountain has been good - the TM remains tight and dry. Yup - always listen to the "other half," usually don't admit she's right, but most of the time she is.

LoveToCamp · 08-04-2013, 09:55 PM

Well, since we are discussing hail, we just got back from South Dakota. Our last night camping, we had a 10-minute, hard, hail storm. Only pea-sized, but my gosh was it loud!!! DW had to cover her ears. I'm 3/4 deaf, so it wasn't as bad for me. Our cat, though, was scared to death.

I have covers over my manual vents, so I wasn't concerned (too much) about those vent covers. The Fantastic Fan, though, I was concerned about. Didn't want it to break, then have all the rain coming in. Fortunately, nothing broke.

However, our roof has dings all over it. Not as big as golf-ball hail would have done, but definitely dents all over. The rock guard over the front window was open, but it had no damage.

Solar panel had no damage, and is working fine, fortunately.

So, other than the deafening roar, and cosmetic dings on the roof, we fared okay. Driving home Saturday, we hit the same storm MarkoPolo got, but it only had marble-sized hail, and we didn't sustain any more damage.

I hope no one else is in their TM when hailstorms hit! The noise is incredible.

davlin · 08-05-2013, 08:15 AM

Mark,

Sorry for your dimple damage. Our old 3326 was caught in a hailstorm and had the same dimples. Although there was no way to actually fix them, our insurance company gave us an "appearance allowance" of about $1500. We took that money and put it in our "trailer maintenance account" to use whenever we had to fix something up on the trailer.

Just a thought.

Dave

MarkoPolo · 08-11-2013, 05:30 PM

I've taken a series of photos of the hail damage. I will send them to the dealer to help with getting an estimate for the insurance company. I figure most adjusters will need some additional information to understand you can't repair a Trailmanor's laminate construction like a traditional trailer.
The photos have been manipulated to show the hail damage. I have created an album to show all views.
Mark

LoveToCamp · 08-11-2013, 09:54 PM

Holy moly! Those are much bigger dimples than what I got. Certainly seems like a repair is in order, as with the stretching of the metal, you don't know how thin the metal is at the bottom of the dimple.

Good luck! So sorry to see your new TM abused by the weather!