As you may know, Texas has been suffering some severe weather lately. We, over in the west side of the state, have fortunately been less impacted than the central and eastern portion. The storm fronts usually start building over here, and get progressively stronger as they move east. However, yesterday we got a little taste of the bad stuff. Big super cell storm blossomed right on top of us with heavy rain, high winds of course, several reports of tornadoes on the ground near the airport (between Midland and Odessa), and lastly my favorite: large damaging hail.
Our coach sits out in our driveway unprotected. Been there (when not traveling) for about 11 years, and up to now no weather related damage. During this storm the wind was blowing out of the north at over 80 MPH, and the hail was coming down from that direction. Our coach sits facing north, so the front end was exposed to the worst of the wind and hail. After the storm moved on, I went out to survey damage. Almost everything on the coach roof survived perfectly intact, except two of the amber running lights above the windshield were smashed. At first I thought the windshields were undamaged, but taking a closer look I saw a crack in the passenger side glass.
The crack follows a round track, and covers about 190 degrees of a almost perfect circle. It appears to originate at a small chip in the glass. The chip may have been there previously - I can't recall for sure. I am sure the crack was not there before. Looking at the outside of the windshield, I can't feel the crack with my finger tip or my finger nail. Standing inside the coach, I can't feel anything, but that's expected because our coach has the ceramic heat blocking film on the inner windshield glass.
Tried to get some photos (below) but the camera has a hard time focusing on the crack.
Anyway, a quick Google search tells me this type of damage is very unusual. It doesn't look at all like other photos of hail damage. I ASSUME it was caused by the impact of a big hail stone. We saw stones larger than golf balls falling in our yard, and they reported baseball and softball sized hail at the airport 7 miles SE of our house. Just wondering if any other Forum members have ever had this peculiar type of glass damage.
We have Progressive zero deductible windshield coverage, so I'll get the glass replaced eventually. Not looking forward to the hassle of finding a place to do the job properly. I've read all the past horror stories on the Forum. Anyway, I don't feel like it's an emergency so I'll take my time getting around to that project. 8)
I had a very similar crack once in a car windshield, after a hail storm in Australia, the hail was large and hitting at an oblique angle, perhaps that explains the shape?
But, I'm glad that you only got a little damage.
Do you think it might be a good idea to have the roof checked for damage and small gelcoat cracks too?
The Google says "blunt object impact". The force of the impact momentarily deforms/stresses the glass.
I'm up on our roof pretty often, so I'm very familiar with the condition. The heavy rain cleaned all the accumulated dirt off, so I took a good look around this morning. No other damage besides the two clearance lights. We have 6 solar panels, two air conditioners, the large skylight over the shower, and covers over the bathroom and kitchen vent fans. No damage to anything! We were very fortunate!
Also. Laminated Glass for the front windshield, so just the exterior glass surface may have been damaged, inside layer held with the sticky stuff that is placed in-between layers ^.^d
Hail can also make a mess of the fins on your roof AC units and possibly the shrouds. In doing a damage assessment I'd have a look.
Last summer while we were camped in Colorado Springs a very small summer rain cloud appeared and machined gunned a quarter mile diameter area around us with quarter sized hail. Took out the skylight over the shower. If you hare going to have a hole in your roof when it rains this is where you want it. Rain comes in and goes down the shower drain. Anyway patched up the skylight hole with flex steel 4 or 6 inch wide tape and replaced the dome several months later.
A couple years ago, Tom and Jo Palmer had their Grand Villa do badly damaged by hail that their insurance company totaled it. As I recall I think they were camped somewhere around San Antonio when the event occurred.
I looked. Shrouds are fine. The fins on our Atwood units open on the aft end of the covers, so they weren't exposed to the hail.
Photos below show A/C units.
I
was surprised the old original very fragile cover on our Kool-O-Matic kitchen exhaust fan wasn't damaged. Don't know how it survived...
Sorry for your windshield damage, always a problem with motorhomes. We do not use insurance for maintenance items like glass replacements. Insurance Clue Database knows all, even inquiry calls, and has a long memory life where claims can affect future premiums and cancellations. Insurance is important for catastrophic loses. CLUE (Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange) | Washington state Office of... (https://www.insurance.wa.gov/clue-comprehensive-loss-underwriting-exchange)
I have the exact same crack on my passenger side windshield, its been there since I bought the coach. The previous owner stated it was from a kids basketball bouncing off the windshield.