Colorado Hail Storm

MarkoPolo-TMO

MarkoPolo-TMO

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2013
Posts
314
Location
Greeley, Colorado
Well, it's been years since we have had a destructive hail storm, this afternoon our luck ran out! Near golf ball sized hail for about 10-15 minutes and then smaller hail and torrential rain for nearly an hour. Flower and vegetable garden pretty well flattened--SUV and truck in the garage....Trailmanor 2922KD out in the yard. Luckily next to cottonwood tree that was somewhat of a shield as the storm came from that direction. Good sized dents on the top front of the trailer. Surprisingly, the vents were not shattered but all the light covers underneath were knocked off, including the one in front of the bed. It was still raining, so I haven't been able to see the roof yet ( the trailer is up), but it seems the damage is only cosmetic. Still, it hurts to see dings in your new toy!! Could have been worse, there was a tornado touch down less than a mile away. Not sure about an insurance claim, as there is no way to "repair" the dents. Might affect trade value down the road, but for now I choose to look at it under the "stuff happens" part of life.
Mark
 
Mark, you may want to look into paintless dent repair. Those guys may be able to repair or improve the look of your hail damage.
 
Thanks for the replies. I was able to get on an 8 ft. ladder and use a squeegee to clean all the leaves and branches off the top. Looks kind of like the surface of a giant golf ball :eek:. However, there is no damage to to solar panel (I woke up in the middle of the night worrying about that) and the skylights, antenna and air conditioner seem undamaged. The solar panel controls show a normal charge of 13.4 volts. So, really it's only cosmetic damage as far as I know for now. A mile one way and I wouldn't have had any damage. A few miles another and I would have had tennis ball sized hail----purely luck of the draw. I feel really lucky having seen far worse hail damage in my life--grew up in the Texas panhandle and there have been some epic hail storms along the Colorado front range ( I replaced three roofs in 4 years back in the '70's).
I watched dent masters remove a door ding from my SUV and basically they gain access to the inside of a panel through existing holes or they make one to gain access. Don't think that would would work with Trailmanor's laminate construction.
Thanks again for the replies.
Mark
 
A little follow up...Yesterday I thought about removing a cottonwood branch that had to be lifted to completely open the door. My DW suggested that branch might protect the sky lights/vents if a storm hit. That is exactly the reason they aren't broken. Moral of that story...always listen to your better half...they are way smarter than you!!
 
We just had the hard rain and lots of noise! I've got a big cottonwood tree that I park under (sap is a problem once a year so have some spots on top) but it certainly provides some protection. You might try some dry ice on the dents - I've used it on small dents on a car - use gloves and just place it over the dent. Worth a try - our Walmart carries the dry ice. Sure glad it wasn't worse. We've had some flooding in the Springs area, but so far Fountain has been good - the TM remains tight and dry. Yup - always listen to the "other half," usually don't admit she's right, but most of the time she is.
 
Well, since we are discussing hail, we just got back from South Dakota. Our last night camping, we had a 10-minute, hard, hail storm. Only pea-sized, but my gosh was it loud!!! DW had to cover her ears. I'm 3/4 deaf, so it wasn't as bad for me. Our cat, though, was scared to death.

I have covers over my manual vents, so I wasn't concerned (too much) about those vent covers. The Fantastic Fan, though, I was concerned about. Didn't want it to break, then have all the rain coming in. Fortunately, nothing broke.

However, our roof has dings all over it. Not as big as golf-ball hail would have done, but definitely dents all over. The rock guard over the front window was open, but it had no damage.

Solar panel had no damage, and is working fine, fortunately.

So, other than the deafening roar, and cosmetic dings on the roof, we fared okay. Driving home Saturday, we hit the same storm MarkoPolo got, but it only had marble-sized hail, and we didn't sustain any more damage.

I hope no one else is in their TM when hailstorms hit! The noise is incredible.
 
Mark,

Sorry for your dimple damage. Our old 3326 was caught in a hailstorm and had the same dimples. Although there was no way to actually fix them, our insurance company gave us an "appearance allowance" of about $1500. We took that money and put it in our "trailer maintenance account" to use whenever we had to fix something up on the trailer.

Just a thought.

Dave
 
I've taken a series of photos of the hail damage. I will send them to the dealer to help with getting an estimate for the insurance company. I figure most adjusters will need some additional information to understand you can't repair a Trailmanor's laminate construction like a traditional trailer.
The photos have been manipulated to show the hail damage. I have created an album to show all views.
Mark
 

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Holy moly! Those are much bigger dimples than what I got. Certainly seems like a repair is in order, as with the stretching of the metal, you don't know how thin the metal is at the bottom of the dimple.

Good luck! So sorry to see your new TM abused by the weather!
 
Wow

Wow! Not what you want to see on a less than one year old camper. Definitely check with your TM dealer for full extent of damage and if you need new shells.
 
I’ll add 2 cents (or maybe 4) and my experiences with insurance to this post since my situation is similar and possibly from the same same storm system (but up in S. Dakota, north of Denver a ways.) Maybe it'll be of use to someone: Aug. 3, 2013, we had a major hailstorm during the night, just before leaving on 2-week camping trip. Golf-ball size hail for maybe 10 minutes. Our TM 3124KB was folded down (and hooked up to the tow vehicle) or things would have been much worse. The hail destroyed the 2 manual roof vents (including breaking through the screens inside them, made holes in the more durable Fantastic Fan vent cover, and damaged the AC cover (somewhat brittle from being in the sun, as were the roof vents.) Also broken or damaged were a tail light lens, the LP gas tanks cover, and one side light lens.

The exposed roof shells were pretty well beat up, several hundred dings up to quarter size, as well as a few on the driver’s side of the TM where the storm blew in from. Since it was folded down, the destroyed roof vents only “leaked” rain onto the other shell beneath. No water got inside, yahoo!

After an assessment and realizing we had no major leaks from the storm, we decided to go on our trip anyway, stopping at a (non-TM) RV dealer on the way to get 2 MaxxAir vent covers which were a quick fix at the campground to cover the broken manual vents (it rained again later and the MaxxAir covers kept all the water out.) The dealer also gave us a FREE Fantastic Fan vent cover under the lifetime warranty of this truly “fantastic” company. I got a new taillight lens and put that on also.

Back home again later in August, I contacted our insurance company (USAA, also “fantastic” in my opinion), they sent an adjuster to my home, who I tried to “educate” about the specifics of fixing up a TM. I had called TrailManor dealer “The Car Show” in Colorado Springs for their advice...they said it would cost around $13,000. to actually fix the kind of damage I described, since the shells which are dented have to be REPLACED, they cannot be “skinned” with new aluminum as is apparently done with other RV brands. They also were very helpful with a “retail value” estimate of an undamaged TM like mine (which has most of the options), pegging it at around $9000. in good average condition. (I paid $13,500. about 3 years ago.) I gave this info to the adjuster.

USAA contacted me in a couple days, saying the trailer was “totaled” and came up with a value of about $8450. using 3 comparable sales of similar-age TMs around the country in the past 9 months or so (2 private sales, 1 dealer). After I pointed out a couple things the adjuster had missed (over sink cabinet, power vent, etc.), this was raised to about $8800. At my request they put it out for bids for purchase by salvage companies and within minutes they were offered $1500. This meant that we could optionally keep the trailer and receive a payment of about $7100. We have accepted this offer and will fix the vents and live with the dents. (Hey, that rhymes!) Tow vehicle was also damaged and payment received from USAA for optional repair.
 
I thought I might follow up on the hail damage. State Farm required an adjuster to look at the Trailmanor at the dealership to come up with a supplemental payment. I could use the payout to either reduce the note or give it to dealer for repair or trade. The numbers worked out to order a new 2922KD with a cassette toilet and special "Rocky Mountain" striping. The payments remains the same, just a one year newer trailer. So, in few weeks we will have a new TM, and someone will get a good deal on a 2922KD with "character". I thought long and hard about keeping the trailer--but decided to go new. The Trailmanor is our semi-retirement present to ourselves, so new will be nice. Now if we can just keep more hailstorms away:)
 
:D Tim, you are right, but this is the first roof replacement on our house that was built in 1992. Seems like these things come in bunches, so I hope next year is no repeat. That is why I am thinking of trying to fit a rather large car port with one solid side on our property to avoid this in the future. This is the main reason this was a hard decision--I will definitely kick myself if it happens again.
 
Hey Mark I hear ya, I only mention it because I was caught in two sand storms within in three years back in the late seventies and had to get two front end paint jobs on two different trucks. The insurance company paid for both, but my rates went up. :mad:

Kudos to you for gettin exactly what you wanted out of this.
 
Well, our new 2922KD has arrived in Colorado Springs and we will go down The Car Show to pick it up (and trade our 2013!) on Saturday. Not sure if I will have a chance to put it up and take any photos--with the shank of winter coming it probably will be stored until spring to outfit and get ready for next year's camping season. If you don't mind cosmetic dents, there should be a pretty good deal on our 2013 2922KD!
 
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