North Texas takes hail. Most homeowners think about the roof, some think about the car, and almost nobody thinks about the garage door until they walk out and see it.
A garage door is a large flat sheet of steel facing straight up the driveway. It is one of the most exposed surfaces on the house and one of the easiest to dent.
Why some doors dent and others do not
Construction is the whole difference.
A single layer steel door is one thin skin with nothing behind it. It is the cheapest door on the shelf and it is what a lot of North Texas housing from the 1970s and 1980s still has, particularly in Mesquite and the older parts of Garland. Hail that a modern door would shrug off will dimple it across the whole face.
A double or triple layer insulated door has polystyrene or polyurethane bonded behind the steel skin. The insulation supports the panel from behind, which raises its impact resistance substantially. It is not hail proof, but the difference in a real storm is obvious.
Gauge matters too. Steel is measured in gauge and lower numbers are thicker. A 24 gauge door will hold up considerably better than a 28 gauge one, and builder installed doors tend toward the thinner end.
What to do in the first hour
Before anything else, document it while the evidence is fresh.
- Photograph the whole door from straight on, in even light, from about fifteen feet back
- Photograph each damaged section close up, with something for scale
- Photograph the top and bottom edges and the sections around any windows
- Note the date of the storm
Insurers ask for all of this and it is far easier to gather now than to reconstruct in three weeks. Take more photos than you think you need.
Check whether it still runs correctly
Cosmetic damage is one thing. A door knocked out of alignment is another, and the second is a safety issue.
With the opener disconnected, lift the door by hand and watch it. It should move smoothly, without binding, catching or scraping at any point, and it should hold position when you let go at waist height. Look along the track for any bend, and check whether the rollers are travelling cleanly through the curve.
If the door binds, if it feels heavier on one side, or if anything has visibly moved, stop using it and call. That is cable and track work and forcing it makes it worse.
One panel or the whole door
This is the question that decides the size of the bill, and two things determine the answer.
Is the section still made? Manufacturers change panel designs regularly. A door more than about fifteen years old often has no matching section still in production, and a close-but-not-quite match looks worse than the damage did. We identify the manufacturer and model, usually from a label inside one of the sections, and check availability before quoting anything.
Are the neighbouring sections actually undamaged? Hail does not tidily hit one panel. Look at the sections above and below the obvious damage from an angle, in low light, with the sun raking across the surface. Dimpling that is invisible head on shows up clearly that way. Replacing one section between four dimpled ones buys you half a repair.
Where a swap does work, panel replacement runs $350 to $1,400 depending on the section and the door line, against $1,100 and up for a full new door. It is a real saving and worth pursuing where the door supports it.
One honest caveat: an exact colour match on a door that has faced ten Texas summers is rarely possible. A new section will be slightly brighter than the weathered ones around it. We show customers the difference before they commit rather than after.
About the insurance claim
We are not adjusters and this is not insurance advice, but a few things come up constantly.
Garage doors are usually covered under the dwelling portion of a homeowners policy rather than as a separate item, which means the claim is subject to your deductible. If the damage is a single dented section and your deductible is $2,500, a claim may not be worth filing.
Where it usually is worth it is when the garage door is part of a wider storm claim that already includes the roof, siding, gutters or windows. In that situation the door is one line item on a claim you are filing anyway.
Adjusters want a written estimate, and they want it itemised. A lump sum figure is the thing most likely to get questioned, so ask for the breakdown whoever you use.
The upgrade question
If the door is going to be replaced anyway, this is the moment to think about what replaces it.
Hail is not a one time event in this part of Texas. Allen, McKinney, Frisco and the Collin County corridor generally see it often enough that specifying a heavier gauge insulated door is a decision that pays for itself over the life of the door.
The same upgrade brings the other benefits: a substantially cooler garage through a North Texas summer, quieter operation, and better resistance to the everyday dents from bikes, bins and reversing cars.
And a reminder that applies to every door replacement: the new door needs new springs sized to its weight. An insulated door weighs more than the single layer door it replaces. Any quote that reuses the existing spring system is setting up an early failure.
After the storm
Storm season reliably brings a run of these calls, and we handle them across the metroplex from Coppell. If your door took hail, photograph it, check whether it still runs true, and call (469) 281-7750.
We will tell you honestly whether it is a panel job or a door job, and we will give you both numbers so you can decide rather than take our word for it.