After the Storm: Checking Your Siding for Damage That Hides

Most storm damage to siding never announces itself. The morning after high wind or hail, you walk around the house, everything looks more or less fine, and you go back inside. Weeks later a patch of paint starts to bubble, or a musty smell shows up in a back bedroom, and by then a small problem has had time to turn into a damp wall. That gap between the storm and the symptom is where siding damage hides, and it is the reason a careful check straight after bad weather is worth more than a hurried glance.

This is not a job for a ladder or a climb onto the roof. Nearly everything you need to spot can be seen from the ground, from a porch, or from inside the house with a torch. What you are really doing is comparing what the house looked like before the storm with what it looks like now, and paying attention to the places you do not normally look: the side of the house behind the fence, the wall above the garage, the stretch of siding behind the shrubs.

Give yourself a slow lap of the house and take your time with it. Storm damage is rarely one dramatic hole. More often it is a handful of small changes, a cracked board here, a lifted edge there, a piece of trim that no longer sits flush. Each one on its own might not worry you. Together, they tell you where water is likely to get in next time it rains.

Wait until the weather has properly cleared and the ground is not slick. Walk the full perimeter of the house, including the sides you rarely see, and look up along each wall rather than straight ahead. Siding damage shows up best when you sight along the surface from an angle, because a lifted edge or a bowed board casts a shadow you would miss head on. Binoculars help a lot for the upper storey, and they are far safer than a ladder for this kind of check.

Look at the ground as well as the walls. Bits of siding, broken trim, or small coloured fragments on the lawn or in the flower beds tell you something came off, even if the wall looks whole from where you stand. Hail leaves its own evidence too: dented metal vent covers, chipped paint on railings, or pockmarks on a wooden deck can all confirm that your area took a real hit, which makes a closer look at the siding worth your time.

Do the same check from inside. Walk the rooms on the outside walls, especially the rooms you do not use much, and look low along the skirting boards and around window frames. A faint damp patch, paint that has started to blister, or a musty smell in one corner can be the first sign that water got behind the siding during the storm, even when the outside still looks sound. If you find anything like that, note which wall it is on and what you see, because that detail will matter when someone comes to look at the outside.

Cracked boards are the most common find after a storm, and they are easy to underestimate. A hairline crack in a vinyl panel or a split in a wood board might look cosmetic, but a crack is an open door for wind driven rain. Water does not need a big gap. It follows the crack, runs down behind the board, and sits against the wall underneath. On vinyl, look for cracks near the ends of panels and around fixings, where the material is under the most stress. On wood, check the ends of boards and any spot where the paint has already thinned, because splits start where the timber is least protected.

Dents and punctures tell a different story. Hail can dent metal siding and punch small holes in vinyl, and a puncture does not have to be large to matter. Press gently around any dent you find and see whether the panel feels loose or flexes more than the panels around it. A panel that has lost its fixing will rattle in the next strong wind and work itself looser over time, so a small dent with a loose panel behind it is worth more attention than a dent on a panel that still sits tight.

Lifted edges are the ones most people walk straight past. Wind gets under the bottom edge of a board and peels it up just enough to break the overlap with the board below. From the ground it can look like nothing more than a shadow line, but if you can see daylight or a dark gap under an edge that used to sit flat, that joint is open. Run your eye along each course of siding and watch for any board that sticks out further than its neighbours, or any section where the shadow line suddenly gets wider.

The tricky part of storm damage is that siding can look intact while the layers behind it are wet. Wind driven rain is pushed sideways and upwards, so it gets into joints and laps that normal rainfall never reaches. Once water is behind the siding, it can sit against the wall sheathing for days, and the first sign is often not on the outside of the house at all. That is why the inside check matters just as much as the walk around the garden.

Pay attention to any board that sounds hollow when you tap it lightly, or any section that feels soft or springy compared with the rest of the wall. Softness in wood siding usually means the timber has been wet before, possibly more than once, and storm water has found a way in through a crack or a failed joint. On any siding type, a patch of discolouration that was not there before the storm is worth a closer look, even if the surface feels dry now. Staining is often the only visible trace of water that has already passed through.

Check the walls that took the brunt of the wind first, but do not stop there. Wind swirls around corners and funnels along the sides of a house, so the sheltered side can take surprising damage while the windward wall looks untouched. The side of the house nobody looks at, the one behind the fence or the side passage, is the side most likely to hide a problem, simply because nobody checks it. Make that side part of every post storm walk, not an afterthought.

Siding boards get all the attention, but trim and flashing are where water usually gets in. Trim is the boards around windows, doors, and corners, and flashing is the thin metal that directs water away from joints and edges. After a storm, check whether any piece of trim has pulled away from the wall, even by a few millimetres. A gap at the top of a window frame lets water run straight down behind the siding below it, and it will do that quietly for months.

Look closely at corners, where two walls meet, and at any place where siding meets a different material, such as brick, stone, or a porch roof. These junctions rely on small overlaps and sealant to stay watertight, and wind can work them loose without breaking anything obvious. If you see sealant that has cracked, peeled, or gone missing along a joint, treat that joint as open until someone repairs it. Sealant fails in small sections, not all at once, so a short failed stretch is easy to miss and easy to fix early.

Do not forget the band of siding closest to the ground. Storm water splashes up, mulch and soil get thrown against the wall, and debris piles up against the bottom course. If soil or mulch is now sitting against the siding, clear it away, because constant contact with damp material rots wood and stains other siding types over time. While you are there, check that the bottom edge of the siding still has clearance above the ground and is not buried under a drift of leaves or gravel the storm pushed in.

Gutters and downspouts are the best witnesses you have after a storm, and they cost nothing to inspect. A gutter that has pulled away from the fascia, even slightly, dumps roof water straight down the wall instead of carrying it away, and that wall will stay wet long after the storm. Walk the line of each gutter from the ground and look for sagging sections, gaps at the joints, or brackets that have bent or come loose.

Downspouts deserve the same attention. A downspout that has detached at an elbow, or one whose bottom section now points at the wall instead of away from it, soaks the siding at its base every time it rains. Check that each downspout still discharges clear of the house and that the splash block or drain at its foot has not been washed out of place. If you find granules, small coloured chips, or bits of siding material sitting in a gutter, that debris tells you what the storm did to the surfaces above it, and it is worth noting before you clean it out.

Overflowing gutters during the storm itself are also a clue. If you saw water pouring over a gutter edge, that section was overwhelmed, blocked, or both, and the wall beneath it took a soaking. Make a note of which stretch overflowed, because that is the first place to check for damp or staining in the weeks after. Clearing a blocked gutter is a job most homeowners can handle from the ground with a stable step and a scoop, but if a gutter has come loose from the fascia or a section needs refixing, that is a job for someone with the right kit and experience.

Before anyone repairs, replaces, or even cleans anything, take photographs. This step is easy to skip when you are keen to get the house looking right again, but it is the step you will be glad you took. Photograph each damaged area from a few paces back so the location on the wall is clear, then take a closer shot of the damage itself. Include a fixed reference point in the wider shot, a window, a corner, or a door, so anyone looking at the photo later can tell exactly where on the house it is.

Write a short note to go with the photos: the date of the storm, the wall and the height of the damage, and what you found. A note like "north wall, above the garage, three cracked boards and one lifted edge" is far more useful than a folder of unlabelled pictures. If you spot anything inside the house, a damp patch or a smell, note that too, with the room and the wall it is on. Keep the original photos untouched and make copies if you need to mark anything up.

Do not let anyone start repairs before you have this record, and be wary of anyone who turns up uninvited after a storm offering to fix things on the spot. Storm chasing is a real problem in this trade, and the pressure tactics are the giveaway. If you want to know what to watch for, our post on the red flags that follow storm damage work covers the common tricks in plain language. A reputable contractor will be happy to wait while you document the damage and get a second opinion.

Most homeowners can judge the simple cases themselves. A single cracked board on an otherwise sound wall, with no damp inside and no other damage nearby, is usually a straightforward repair: the board comes out and a matching one goes in. The same goes for one piece of trim that has pulled loose, or a short section of sealant that needs renewing. These are small, contained jobs, and they are worth doing promptly, because even a small opening lets in water every time it rains.

Call a pro when the damage spreads further than one spot. Several cracked or lifted boards on the same wall, damage on more than one side of the house, any damp or staining inside, or boards that feel soft all point to something wider than a single board. So does any damage near a window, door, or corner, where a repair has to be watertight in several directions at once. If you are unsure whether the wall behind the siding is dry, that uncertainty alone is a good reason to get someone experienced to look, because guessing wrong means sealing moisture inside a wall.

Age matters in this judgement too. Older siding that has already been repaired in places, or boards that are brittle, faded, or warped across a whole wall, will not always take a neat single board repair. A pro can tell you honestly whether a repair will blend and hold, or whether you are patching a wall that is near the end of its working life. That honest answer is worth more than a quick fix that fails at the next storm. If you want a sense of what that assessment looks like, a look at professional siding services will show you the range of repair and replacement work available, and you can compare it with what your own walls actually need.

A good siding inspection goes beyond the boards you can see. The pro will check how each course is fixed, whether the laps are tight, and whether the boards still have room to expand and contract, because siding that is fixed too tightly buckles and cracks over time. They will look behind a loose board if one needs to come off anyway, to see whether the layer underneath is dry and sound, and they will check the trim, flashing, and sealant at every junction on the damaged walls, not just the spots you pointed out.

They should also check the walls you did not mention. A thorough inspector walks the whole house, because storm damage is rarely confined to the one wall you noticed. Expect them to look at the inside too, or at least ask you about damp patches, smells, or staining on the inside walls. If someone only looks at the single board you flagged and quotes on the spot without walking the rest of the house, that is a thin inspection, and you are entitled to a better one.

Ask what they found in plain terms, and ask them to show you. A good answer sounds like "three boards on the north wall, the flashing above the garage window has lifted, and the wall behind it is dry," not a vague warning that everything needs replacing. If the answer is a full wall replacement, ask why a repair will not hold, and get that reasoning in writing. Local knowledge counts here as well: crews who work your area regularly know which wall directions take the worst weather and which materials hold up best in it, which is why homeowners looking for siding help in Pennsylvania or siding services across Nevada tend to get more useful advice from people who already work those regions. In a city, the same applies street by street: Philadelphia siding work sees different wear patterns than work in the suburbs, and a local crew will know the difference.

Pressure washing is the most common self inflicted damage after a storm. It feels like the right move: the house looks dirty, the siding looks stained, and a pressure washer seems like a fast fix. But a strong jet drives water behind boards, strips paint from wood, and can crack vinyl that hail has already weakened. If your siding needs cleaning after a storm, a soft wash with a garden hose and a brush is the safe option, and any staining that does not shift with that is worth showing to a pro rather than blasting harder.

Painting over damage is the second trap. Fresh paint hides a crack for a season, but it does not seal it, and it makes the damage harder to spot next time. Paint over a damp board and you trap moisture underneath, which is exactly how rot starts in wood siding. The same logic applies to caulking over a lifted edge without fixing why it lifted: you have hidden the symptom and kept the cause. Fix the board, the fixing, or the flashing first, and let paint and sealant do the jobs they are actually meant for.

The quietest mistake is ignoring the side of the house nobody looks at. Damage on the back or side wall goes unrepaired because nobody sees it day to day, and by the time it shows inside, the repair is no longer small. Put the neglected side into your routine after every storm, even if it means walking around the fence or through the side passage. A five minute check there is worth more than a perfect check of the front of the house that everyone already admires.

Start with the walk and the photographs, then make a short list: what is damaged, where it is, and whether anything inside the house has changed. Get the small, clear repairs booked promptly, and get a proper inspection for anything widespread, damp, or uncertain. Keep your photos and notes together, because you will want them if you speak to an insurer or get a second quote, and they will remind you what to recheck after the next heavy rain.

Then set yourself one follow up check a few weeks later, after a good downpour. Walk the same route again and look at the same spots. If a repaired board still sits tight, the trim is still flush, and the inside walls are still dry, the storm damage is properly behind you. If anything has moved, stained, or started to smell, you have caught it early, and early is when siding problems are cheapest and simplest to put right. That second look is the habit that separates a house that weathers storms well from one that quietly soaks them up.