Hail

[Exnavydiver]

Here is a quick question, how would you protect your rig from hail if you knew it was coming? As you probably have seen in the news, Wisconsin has been hammered by huge rains and many twisters. All of which can produce hail. Just south of here they had almost 4 inches of golf ball sized hail. It covered the road and blocked traffic. I know that there isn't much you can do if driving but when parked is what I am refering to. Most of us have that huge bubble over the shower and at least 3 vents.. Dave

[snfexpress]

Dave,

We were in Georgia when the walnuts started dropping from the limbs above our 5er. I found some discarded carpet that had been used as an outside mat, and along with my mat, I covered the roof. This distributed the kinetic energy of the walnut hitting the roof (along with its pointy ends) and saved us.

If I was going to go formal, I would probably get some thick-ish, light weight material and put some reinforced holes in the edges thru which I could attach bungee cords. I'd also try to bungee mostly on the front and rear air conditioner, trying to provide a pocket of dead air between the covering and the roof.

JMO...

[ols1932]

In almost seven years of full timing, we've been in several hail storms throughout the midwest and we just haven't worried about it. We've never seen any damage and there have been golf ball size hail falling. If you're in your rig, what are you going to do. If you're like me you'll stay inside.

Orv

[bigmurf]

Am going in the shop tomorrow for hail repair. Had damage to window awnings (4 that were out) slide topper (1) and A/C cover and one roof vent which had a Max Air cover on it. Done NOTHING to the roof, two Fantastic vents, shower skylight or four solar panels. Just build a BIG building around it. g

[billhoover]

We had a hail storm a few months ago...caused lots of damage, but the damage was evenly split between roofs and the sides of anything facing west. The west wind of over 60 mph did lots of damage to the sides of vehicles and buildings.

[Exnavydiver]

Thanks for the suggestions, I was worried about the sky lite and the fantastic fans although I plan on putting the big Maxx air covers on this year. I was kind of thinking about maybe an old quilt over the skylite and vents, never thought about the ACs. When this storm hit last week you could not see more than 10 feet and the noise was terrible. There are new steel roofs down there that look like they were made from hammered metal (which they were) and it toasted several truck dealers. Would hate to sit in the Big Sky for a storm like that... Dave

[Glenn and Lorraine]

quote:Originally posted by ols1932

In almost seven years of full timing, we've been in several hail storms throughout the midwest and we just haven't worried about it. We've never seen any damage and there have been golf ball size hail falling. If you're in your rig, what are you going to do. If you're like me you'll stay inside.

Orv

how would you protect your rig from hail if you knew it was coming? My question would be "how would we know it's coming?"

Gotta agree with Orv. In nearly 5 years of Full Timing we have been in 4 or 5 hail storms. Other than a horrendous racket inside we experienced no outside damage.
The last place I would want to be is on the roof during a hail storm and I surely wouldn't be climbing up there because some meteorologist said so.
Just today the National Weather Service predicted for our area severe thunderstorms and damaging wind gusts sometime after 2 PM. Well it was after 2, actually it was more like 6:30 PM and by 7:30 it was all over. The thunderstorm did appear but hardly what any layman would call severe and the wind gusts amounted to maybe 20 MPH and only lasted a few minutes.

[Exnavydiver]

Great point Glenn, since all my gear was inside when the storm hit and the rig was 3 hours south west of here I guess it was a moot point. I started to run out and close the garage doors and then thought better of it after I got two knots on the head. I guess it was a dumb question.. Dave

[ols1932]

incidentally, I forgot to mention in my previous post that we have four solar panels that have survived all the hail storms that our rig has gone through, without any damage.

Orv

[Waynem]

Find a nice tree covered lot and hope for no lightning strikes.

[Waynem]

Find a nice tree covered lot and hope for no lightning strikes.

[Exnavydiver]

While I was talking to our dealer today I asked if the hail had hit them and he said no but that they had three rigs (Montanas) and that one was so bad that they were discussing totalling it. The roof was shredded, there was not a vent left, the AC covers were in pieces. All but two windows were gone and the sides were pretty badly dinged up.. The other two both needed vents and sky lights, one needed a back window. Nasty storm. I guess it would be silly to try and cover the rig in a storm like that, probably be a good idea to set a buck in the shower and collect the hail stones for making stiff drinks while waiting for the insurance guy to arrive... Dave and Betsy

[skypilot]

Hail storm here 2 weeks ago - softball size hail and the storm lasted 26 minutes by newspaper reports. Tens of millions of dollars in damage -- two auto dealers entire inventory wiped out (vehicles look like someone took a sledge hammer to them), insurance companies are totalling vehicles left and right. That said, I was about 3 miles away, stick house gets a new roof from the hail damage; 5th wheel parked right next to the house - still waiting on adjuster to come by to view but I see only a couple of dimples in the fibre glass siding; nothing else damaged that I can see!!! Says something for the roofs on these things -- of course, assuming the adjuster finds nothing.

Oh, there is a storage lot in the main hail damage area -- 15 to 20 trailers being totalled there as well (count may include some class A's thru C's parked in the area but the paper only wrote it as recreational trailers.)