We repair and replace vinyl and stucco siding in Calgary, including hail damage that's easy to miss: on vinyl it often only shows when low light hits the wall at an angle. We photograph each wall, show you what we found, and give you one written price. Siding work carries a 5-year workmanship warranty.
How many walls, the siding material, whether the wrap behind it needs work, and whether your siding can still be matched or a whole wall has to be redone.
Siding is where hail claims quietly come up short. Roof damage gets assessed because everyone expects it. Siding gets a glance from the driveway, and hail damage on vinyl is close to invisible when you look at it straight on in flat light.
It shows up when low light crosses the wall at a shallow angle (called raking light), revealing a field of shallow round bruises. In cold weather vinyl goes brittle and cracks, often on the back of the panel where you can't see it until it's removed.
The damage looks different on each material, and so does the conversation with the adjuster.
Siding fades, and many product lines have been discontinued. A ten-year-old wall no longer matches new stock of the same product, so a partial repair on one wall can leave a visible mismatch. Whether your policy covers more than the damaged panels for matching depends on your wording and your insurer, and it needs raising early rather than after a partial repair.
Siding is a rain screen, not a waterproof layer. Behind it a weather-resistive barrier does the actual water management. When siding comes off we look at that barrier and the sheathing behind it, because storm damage that punched through siding may have damaged what's underneath.
Behind your siding are the sheathing (the panels nailed to the wall framing), a water-resistive barrier such as house wrap, a small drainage gap, and flashing at every opening. All siding lets some water through, and those layers carry it back out; when a wall rots, it's almost always because one of them failed, often at a window or where a roof edge meets a wall.
No siding is waterproof, so for a Calgary house the choice comes down to how each material handles hail, cold snaps, fire and upkeep, and the wall behind it matters as much as the siding. Vinyl expands and contracts with temperature and some products crack when struck hard; fibre cement, metal and masonry hold up far better in fire.
Hail cracks and holes vinyl, dents metal, and chips fibre cement and stucco. If the damaged wall can't be matched to the rest of the house, Alberta's Insurance Act sets no matching rule, so what you get depends on your policy wording; photograph every wall by direction before anything is repaired.
Yes. Hail bruises on vinyl are often invisible in flat light and only show when low light hits the wall at an angle, and cold vinyl can crack on the back of the panel. That's why siding should be photographed wall by wall after a storm, not judged from the driveway.
Yes, and it's a normal supplement rather than a fight. What changes the outcome is documentation: raking-light photos showing the bruises, close-ups with a scale, and which walls faced the storm.
Sometimes. You'll see the closest available match before you commit. Discontinued lines and years of sun fade make exact matching difficult, and where it isn't possible, that becomes part of the claim conversation rather than a surprise at the end.
Vinyl and stucco. If your house has something else, ask us about your specific project.
Hail damage, a full re-side or one bad wall. Tell us what you're working with.
