Quick Answer: You can usually tell hail damaged your siding by looking for dents, cracks, chips, or small holes, especially on the wall that faced the storm. Vinyl tends to crack or split, while metal and wood dent. A lot of the damage is subtle, so if your gutters or AC unit got dinged, your siding probably did too. A free inspection confirms it before small cracks turn into water damage.
If you’re trying to figure out how to tell if hail damaged your siding, you probably just watched a storm move through the metro and now you’re eyeing your walls, not just your roof. Here’s the honest answer: hail damage on siding shows up as dents, cracks, chips, and small holes, and the storm-facing side usually takes the worst of it. Some of it jumps right out at you, and some of it hides until water finds its way in.
We get why you’re checking. Central Iowa sits in one of the busiest hail regions in the country, and this year’s storms left plenty of metro homes with cracked and dinged siding. We’ve inspected exteriors across Des Moines for 18 years, so we’ll show you exactly what to look for, the same way we’d walk your property with you.
How Can I Tell If Hail Damaged My Siding?
You can tell hail damaged your siding by walking your home and looking for a handful of specific marks. Most hail damage falls into a few clear categories, and once you know them, they’re hard to unsee.
Here’s what to look for:
- Dents or dings pressed into the surface, often in a scattered, random pattern
- Cracks or splits running through a panel, which are common on vinyl
- Chips, gouges, or small holes where a hailstone punched through
- Circular bruises or discolored spots that follow the round shape of a hailstone
- Chipped or missing paint, especially on wood or metal
- Loose, cracked, or knocked-off panels
Don’t stop at the walls, either. If you notice water stains, peeling paint, or mildew on the inside of an exterior wall, water may already be sneaking in through damaged siding.
What Does Hail Damage Look Like on Different Siding?
Hail damage looks different depending on what your siding is made of, so the material you have changes what you’re hunting for. The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety has run full-scale hail tests on different siding materials, and the takeaway is simple: each one fails in its own way.
- Vinyl siding usually cracks, splits, or punches a hole rather than denting, and older, sun-brittle vinyl cracks the easiest.
- Aluminum and metal siding dent and dimple, and you can often see the shape and size of the hailstone in the mark. Look for spots where paint chipped off too.
- Wood siding dents, chips, and splits, and impacts knock the paint loose.
- Fiber cement is the sneaky one. It stands up to hail well, but when it does take a hit, the cracks and chips are subtle and easy to miss from the ground.
As a James Hardie Alliance Select contractor, we know exactly where to look on a fiber cement wall, and you can see how we handle it on our Des Moines siding services page. If you’re not even sure what your siding is made of, that’s a perfectly normal reason to have a pro take a look.
Where Should I Look First After a Storm?
Start with the wall that faced the storm, because that’s where hail hits hardest. Hail rides the wind, so the side your storm blew in from usually takes the most punishment. In central Iowa, that’s often a west or south wall, and the sun-baked vinyl on those walls is already more brittle and prone to cracking.
A couple of quick tricks help you catch the subtle stuff:
- Check in the early evening or at midday, when the light hits at an angle. Low, angled light casts little shadows that make dents pop, while flat noon sun hides them.
- Walk each side of the house slowly and run your hand across the panels. Sometimes you’ll feel a dent or ripple you can’t quite see.
Mark anything you find with a piece of chalk or snap a photo, so you can show a contractor later.
Can Hail Damage My Siding If My Roof Looks Fine?
Yes, hail can damage your siding even when your roof looks fine, and the reverse happens too. Wind drives hail sideways into your walls, so a storm can crack siding while barely touching the roof, or hammer both at once.
Here’s the easiest shortcut for telling whether you took hits. Look at the metal and painted surfaces around your yard:
- Dented gutters and downspouts
- Bent fins on your outdoor AC unit
- Dinged window wraps, mailbox, or grill
- Spatter marks where hail knocked dirt off a dirty surface
If any of those took hail, your siding almost certainly did too. Since one storm usually hits the roof and walls together, it’s worth checking both, and our guide on how to spot hail damage covers the roof side.
Is Cracked Siding Just Cosmetic, or Does It Matter?
Cracked siding is more than an eyesore, because those cracks let water reach the wall behind them. Siding is your home’s shield against rain, and once a crack or hole opens up, moisture can slip in and start rotting the sheathing, feeding mold, and driving up your energy bills. So a small crack today can turn into a big, expensive repair a season from now.
That’s why it pays to handle even minor-looking damage early. Catching a cracked panel now is cheap. Fixing water damage inside the wall later is not.
What Should I Do If I Find Hail Damage?
If you find hail damage, document it and get it inspected before you do anything else. Take clear photos of every dent, crack, and hole, and note the date of the storm while it’s fresh. Then have a local pro inspect your whole exterior, since hail rarely stops at one part of the house. The same storm that cracked your siding may have bruised your roof, and our Des Moines roofing services cover that side of the inspection.
If the damage came from a specific storm, you may have an insurance claim on your hands. We keep that side short here and cover it in depth in our posts on whether homeowners insurance covers siding damage and what to do after a hail storm, so you can tell whether filing is even worth it.
At Andrew’s Roofing, we’ve protected Des Moines-metro homes for 18 years as a family-owned company and a James Hardie Alliance Select contractor. We inspect your siding, roof, and gutters in one visit, document everything the way an adjuster needs, and tell you plainly whether you’re looking at a repair, a replacement, or nothing to worry about yet.
Think a storm got your siding? Get a free, no-pressure inspection of your whole exterior from a local team that’s been doing this for 18 years. Contact Andrew’s Roofing and we’ll tell you straight what we find.
