- The storm hit across the city.The hardest-hit neighborhoods were on the far west side, the north side and the east side near Maple Bluff. In some, roof permits topped 40 per 100 houses.
- Out-of-state crews arrived fast.79 companies based in other states pulled 1,234 Madison roof permits after the storm.
- Many contractors were new to Madison.155 companies pulled their first Madison house permit after the storm. 72 of them haven't pulled one since July.
- Book outdoor work early, indoor work in summer.Roof permits peak in Jul and Aug; get bids in Nov. Kitchen remodels are quietest in Sep and Nov.
- A roof permit costs about $176.Your contractor pulls it. Fees run about $11 per $1,000 of the job's estimated cost.
Roof permits jumped the month after the storm
Madison issues a permit for every roof replacement on a house. Over the last 36 months, roof permits ran a few hundred a month in a normal summer and dropped to a few dozen in winter. After April 14, they went to 1,955 in a single month.
Meanwhile, south of the hail
Fitchburg, which the April 14 hail reports largely missed, is a useful check. Its roof permits didn't jump at all.
Fitchburg figures from the City of Fitchburg's permit reports; its 2026 data runs through Jul 2026.
Where the roofs came off
Each neighborhood is shaded by roof permits per 100 houses since the storm. Red dots are NOAA hail reports from April 14; bigger dots are bigger hail. Switch to "A typical year" to see the same months in 2024 and 2025.
Most roof permits per 100 houses
- Blackhawk Homeowners54.1233 permits · typical year 2.3
- Elderberry44.1323 permits · typical year 0.1
- Westchester Gardens42.8137 permits · typical year 6.9
- Bluff Acres42.1226 permits · typical year 2.8
- Brentwood Village38.284 permits · typical year 2.3
- Schenk-Atwood-Starkweather-Yahara37.4732 permits · typical year 2.3
- Hiestand36.8142 permits · typical year 4.4
- Whitetail Ridge36.369 permits · typical year 2.6
- Wexford Village Homeowners33.2202 permits · typical year 0.9
- Eastmorland Community32.4488 permits · typical year 2.9
Who climbed onto Madison's roofs
344 companies pulled roof permits on Madison houses after the storm. The ten busiest did 42% of the work. Most were Wisconsin businesses, but about 1 in 6 roofs went to a company based in another state, most often Illinois.
Being from out of state doesn't make a contractor bad. Every company here pulled a city permit, which takes a Wisconsin Dwelling Contractor credential. (DSPS) The question to ask is who will answer the phone in five years if the roof leaks.
Where post-storm roofers are based
When to book: busy and quiet months by job
Permits show when Madison homeowners actually do each kind of work. In a busy month, more jobs compete for the same crews. In a quiet month, contractors have more open dates. These patterns come from 24 months of permits before the storm, Oct 2023 to Sep 2025, so the 2026 hail rush doesn't skew them.
Permits measure demand, not price or wait time. A quiet month is a good time to get bids and hold a spot on the calendar; it doesn't promise a discount.
What a Madison permit actually costs
These are the fees Madison charged on house permits over the last 12 months, from the city's own records. Your contractor usually pulls the permit and folds the fee into the bid. Building permit fees run about $11 for every $1,000 of the job's estimated cost, so bigger jobs cost more to permit.
If your roof still needs work
Hail damage isn't always visible from the ground, and the rush of contractors is easing. A few rules protect you.
- Check that the company holds a Wisconsin Dwelling Contractor credential. Madison requires one for work on one- and two-family homes. (City of Madison) Credential checker
- Say no to door-to-door crews. DATCP warns that transient crews often take payment up front and never do the work. (DATCP)
- A contractor can't offer to pay or rebate your insurance deductible, even as a discount or referral fee. (Wis. Stat. 100.65)
- If your insurer denies the claim, you can cancel the roofing contract until midnight of the third business day after the written denial. (Wis. Stat. 100.65)
- With replacement cost coverage, the insurer pays the depreciation gap only after the repair is done. (OCI)
- Get a lien waiver for every payment you make. (DATCP)
How we did this
Download the data (CSV) · 90 rows · checked 2026-10-11
- Permits: the City of Madison's Construction Summary report, Oct 2023 to Sep 2026, one- and two-family residences only. A permit counts as a roof permit when the city's description mentions a roof, re-roof, shingles or tear-off. New homes and solar panel installs aren't counted.
- "After the storm" means permits issued April 15 to September 30, 2026. "A typical year" is the average of the same dates in 2024 and 2025.
- Contractor state comes from the business address on the permit. A company is "new to Madison" if it pulled no Madison house permit between Oct 2023 and the storm.
- Map: permit addresses matched to city tax parcels, then to neighborhood association boundaries. Houses per neighborhood are single-family, two-unit and three-unit parcels from the same city data. Hail reports are NOAA's 71 Dane County reports for April 14, 2026; NOAA notes some reports aren't verified.
- Other towns: Madison and Fitchburg are the only nearby cities that publish permit lists we can count by month. Sun Prairie shows its permits only in an interactive dashboard, Verona publishes a yearly report that doesn't cover 2026 yet, and DeForest doesn't require a permit for a new roof. Middleton, Monona, Maple Bluff, Waunakee and the other villages don't publish permit lists, so the hail's toll there isn't counted here.
- Fees are the amounts in the city's "Fees Paid" column. They don't include any state fees or plan review charged separately.
- We publish totals only. No address, owner or permit-level record appears on this page.