What valley hail does to a door
The summer storms that roll off the Uncompahgre Plateau and across the Grand Valley drop hail in fast, violent bursts — minutes, not hours — and the garage door takes it squarely. Steel sections dent in a peppered pattern across whatever faces the storm; plastic window inserts crack; and on older doors, the finish chips at every impact point, which becomes a rust map over the following seasons. Because the door is the biggest single surface on the front of the house, it usually shows the worst of it — worse than the siding, worse than the paint, sometimes worse than the roof.
One panel or the whole door
The math runs on two questions. First: is your door’s model and color still in production? If yes, swapping the dented sections alone is usually possible — a fraction of replacement cost, color-matched, done in a visit. Second: how many sections took damage? One or two dented panels argue for the swap; a door peppered across all four sections flips the arithmetic — at that point a full replacement costs less than rebuilding the door piece by piece, and you get new hardware, seals, and warranty terms in the bargain.
The insurance angle, honestly
Hail damage is generally a covered homeowner’s claim, and the garage door belongs in it — adjusters on a roof claim routinely walk past the door nobody mentioned. Document the dents with photos immediately after the storm, with a coin or ruler in frame for scale. Then get the repair-or-replace quote in writing; it’s the number the claim needs. Filing deadlines are real, and “we got around to it in the fall” weakens a claim that a June photo would have made airtight.
After the repair: the next storm
Hail resistance in a replacement door comes from gauge and construction — heavier-gauge steel and insulated sandwich construction take impacts that crease builder-grade single-layer panels. If you’re replacing after a hail claim, it’s worth asking how the options differ in dent resistance. The Grand Valley will throw the same storm again; the question is whether the next door shrugs it off or collects another claim.
