The 2025 Storm Season Glass Checklist: Prepare Your NWA Home and Business Now

March in Northwest Arkansas means two things: the dogwoods are about to bloom, and the storm sirens are about to get their first workout. After years of re-glazing this region every spring, we have a strong opinion: the cheapest storm repair is the one you prepared for in March. Here is the checklist we give our own customers.

Inspect Before the Weather Does

• Walk your glass now. Look for chips, cracks, and failed seals (fog between panes). A chipped annealed pane that survived winter is a pane that hail finishes off, and pre-existing damage complicates insurance conversations. Photograph everything sound: dated photos of intact glass make the after pictures indisputable.
• Check sealant and glazing beads. Cracked, chalky perimeter sealant lets wind-driven rain into walls even when the glass holds. Spring storms here arrive sideways.
• Look up. Skylights and sloped glazing take hail head-on. Overhead glass should be laminated so a broken lite hangs in its frame instead of falling into the room; if you do not know what your skylights are glazed with, that is worth finding out this month.
• Commercial owners: know your glass. A facility manager who can tell us panel sizes and specs gets a storefront re-glazed days faster than one starting from scratch after a storm.

Upgrades That Earn Their Keep

If you are replacing anything this spring anyway, replace it smarter:

• Laminated glass in vulnerable openings. Two plies bonded with a PVB interlayer hold together when struck, keeping weather and debris out until permanent repairs. West- and south-facing exposures and large picture windows are the priority.
• Tempered glass where code allows either. Roughly four times the strength of annealed glass against impact, and safe granular breakage when it does fail.
• Modern IGUs on anything already fogged. A failed unit is coming out eventually; replacing it before storm season with a low-E, argon-filled, warm-edge unit means the insurance-season rush never involves you.

The Morning After: Do This, Not That

• Do photograph damage and fallen hail (with a tape measure) before touching anything, then make openings safe with board-up or plastic and keep receipts. Reasonable emergency protection is generally reimbursable and insurers expect you to prevent further damage.
• Do call a local glazier and your insurer early; after a wide hail event, the fabrication queue forms fast.
• Do not sign anything on your porch. Out-of-state storm chasers sweep through Benton and Washington counties after every major event. Any contractor offering to eat your deductible is proposing insurance fraud with your name on it.
• Do not accept bare-minimum replacement glass without checking specs. Like-for-like means matching your low-E coating and argon fill, not just the dimensions.

Local, Stocked, and Ready

We stage board-up materials and common glass sizes every spring and work directly with adjusters across Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale, Fayetteville, Bella Vista, and Siloam Springs. Get the pre-season inspection done now: request a free estimate and go into storm season with your glass, and your documentation, in order.