Protecting your garage door from hail

Protecting your garage door from hail

If you’ve ever been caught out in a hailstorm, you know that even smaller balls of ice are painful reminders of nature’s moodiness. Hail also inflicts all manner of damage on plants and other foliage, roof shingles, cars, windows of homes and office buildings, and most anything else in its high-speed plunge to earth.

While you might be very aware of potential damage to the roof of your home, it is also important not to forget the garage door. Hailstorms often appear without warning or time to prepare and when coupled with high winds can leave your garage door reeling with damage, from relatively minor cosmetic issues to structural issues that require substantial repair or full replacement.

How does hail damage a garage door?

Even the most well-constructed and installed garage doors are not impervious to hail damage and aside from covering the entire door with plywood or some other barrier, a respectable hailstorm will likely leave its mark. Wind-driven hail can easily scratch or scuff a door and larger hailstones will leave dents or even punch holes right through the panels. Holes in a garage door are open invitations for bugs and water to come on in, leading to other types of damage. Holes left unattended can also increase in size and compromise the door’s strength.

How to protect a garage door from hail damage

Fortunately, strategies are available to help protect your garage door from a fury of ice pellets. Most importantly is preventative maintenance and preparing ahead of time during storm seasons. You can do this by installing reinforcement struts on each panel of the door to boost the integrity of the entire structure. This approach is also very effective at helping your door hold up to very strong winds that can bend or break panels.

Steel garage doors are naturally much stronger than other material and will stand up to hailstorms. An alternative is to install a heavy-duty protective screen to reduce potential damage. Savvy DIYers can even construct a temporary version that can be installed during the threat of a storm and removed afterward.

Homeowners in storm-prone areas of the country may appreciate the long-term benefits of garage doors specifically built to endure nasty weather. Similar to a storm door you might have on the front entrance to your home, the same construction is applied to the larger surface area of a garage door, significantly boosting its defense against hail.