Best tool for matching siding on hail claims
If you're new to claims you might be wondering why adjusters would want to tear siding off of people's houses.
The simple answer is this: in many states and on most policies, an insured is owed a reasonable uniform appearance. So if you find hail or wind damage to one side of the house, generally speaking you'll be paying for that entire elevation. Right? Only makes sense.
Stuff that lives outside all the time will start weathering and fading from the moment it's installed on a house. And that fading will occur at different rates, depending on which compass direction the side of the house is facing - for example, siding on the north side of a house will weather and fade slower than siding on the south side of the house - because of more sun. Remember this because this will become a factor here in just a moment.
So because storms usually come in from the southwest in most places, and because southward-facing elevations will get sun-faded pretty quickly, even if that siding is only a year old and is still available to buy, a new piece of that same sky-blue siding will be darker than what's on the house. It will be instantly noticeable to anybody looking at that side of the house if you only pay to replace just the pieces that were damaged.
This is what we are talking about when we say "reasonable uniform appearance" and it's also why most of the time, even if you find one hole in the siding on one side of the house, you're probably going to be allowed to replace that entire side of siding, corner to corner.
Because nobody wants patchwork siding.
This concept of reasonable uniform appearance can spill over to other elevations as well and an argument can - and often is - attempted to be made that if the right side of the house is damaged and needs to be replaced.. and the front side is also plainly visible when looking at the right side of the house - that the front should be replaced as well.
The only problem with that argument is that the siding on the front and right sides of the house probably doesn't match now anyway. Remember when we talked about the siding fading at different rates depending on which compass direction each side of the house faces?
Say that the right side of the house gets a ton of sun every afternoon - it faces west afterall. And the front side of the house - that faces north - never gets any. I will wager any amount of money that if you pulled a piece of siding off of the right side of the house and held it up against the front side of the house - the north-facing side - the color won't match. The piece from the right will be lighter. Probably much lighter.
Also, consider that when you're looking at the house from the front and you can see the right (or left) side of the house from the front, that the light is going to be different on those two sides. One will almost always be in shadow when the other is in sunlight.
As long as the same profile, general color, and pattern are still available in that siding material, it'll be rare that you pay for that front elevation. It would have to be some kind of special circumstance and your manager and the carrier manager will likely be involved. You won't be making that call. So do not be running around paying for undamaged elevations if the siding is still available (or there is a reasonable match).
All of that goes right out the window if there is no reasonable match for that siding on the right side of the house.
And when I say reasonable, here's what I mean: the replacement siding is either an exact match or it's so close that it's impossible to tell the difference without getting right up on it.
Siding availability is a bit more complex than just having a siding rep or a contractor say, "nope, that's a Certainteed such and such D5 dutchlap with woodgrain pattern and I know for FACT that they don't make that anymore."
That may be true. In fact, since siding manufacturers often retire styles and colors it probably is true.
But that doesn't mean that the exact match isn't still easily available. Or that a reasonable match that's so close as to be almost indistinguishable isn't also available.
How does that even work?
A local or regional supplier may still have enough inventory of that discontinued siding hiding in the back of their warehouse that the one side of the house that was damaged can be replaced with what they have in stock.
Or, the siding company may have sold that particular pattern, profile, and color to another manufacturer, who's got tons of it, just under a different brand and model name.
And again, the color and profile are still available by the same or another manufacturer - and the woodgrain pattern on the siding is very similar to what the insured has on their house. You'd have to get right up on it and look at for ten minutes before you could pick out the differences.
Yes, an insured will KNOW that it's not exactly the same. But that's kinda like KNOWING that you didn't paint behind the refrigerator. You're the only one who will know. It won't affect resale value and likely nobody will EVER know. Except you.
Okay makes sense, right? But how does an adjuster even figure this out? Surely we're not supposed to hunt around in the dark corners of local building supply places to see if siding is available or not, right?
We have this really amazing resource in the insurance building restoration industry called ITEL - Independent Testing Evaluation Laboratory.
They can take most any finished surface material and tell you exactly what it is, who made it, and if it's still available - including if another manufacturer still makes it or what a very close reasonable match is. Also, where we can get it and in what quantity. The report you get back from ITEL will have the name, address, and phone number of a local supplier along with how many squares of the siding they have currently in stock. It's a bit of a lifesaver.
Most of the time, we have to take a piece of siding (or carpet or roofing) about ten to twelve inches long and overnight it to ITEL.
Which means that we have to wrestle a piece of the siding off of the house. Always the damaged side of the house! Never ever under any circumstance will you take siding - or roofing or carpet - from an undamaged area. Why? Because if you do then you've just damaged that area, room, or side of the house as well and now that has to be in the estimate. Don't do it!
For a long time we've had to either use our hands and some airplane snips to rip siding samples off the house.
And there's a cheap tool that you can buy that's only purpose is to pop siding off. A couple of problems with it - first, that's the ONLY thing it does. Second, it's not great at the one job it does have.
Well, the guys over at Bullybag.com have come up with a pretty slick solution to these two problems.
I give you: The Sidebar.
Made with high strength, forged steel. Features a protective durable enamel finish that resists rust and corrosion.
It's got a large nail head remover for roofing and siding nail heads.
It's big enough to check and under shingles and verify roof layers.
It's easy to use with your shingle gauge so you're not tearing up well-sealed shingles trying to get your gauge in there.
It's super easy to pop siding off so you can cut your sample.
The things I really like about this tool - and what I look for in any tool - is that it's big enough to get the job done. But not too big. My regular flatbar is a lot bigger than this. It's also a multitasker. The only place in my work where multitasking is allowed. So where a sideswiper only pulls siding and a flatbar only lifts shingles, the Sidebar does BOTH of those things and in a form factor that fits easily inside of any tool belt.
In fact, it's even got a place to connect a tether to it so that you don't leave it on a roof or in the grass on the side of an insured's house. Remember, anything that you set down, you're going to lose at least once.
