Homeowners keep looking for roof repairs through the winter, and their searches about hail mostly stop. Averaged over 2022 to 2024, US Google Trends interest in “roof repair” held at 91% of its spring level from December to February, and “roof replacement” at 87%, while “hail damage” fell to 30%. Hail mostly falls from March to August, the months that brought 91% of US reports of hail an inch or larger from 2015 to 2025. So the slow-season work to go after is repairs, retail replacements, fall inspections and spring hail claims the homeowner never filed. Cold markets have it harder: in Minneapolis, even repair and replacement interest falls by 40% to 50%.
Lean hail years are normal as well: in the four core counties of Dallas-Fort Worth, where I work, three of the eleven years from 2015 to 2025 brought 8 or fewer reports of hail 1.75 inches or larger. A former owner on r/Roofing points to a large property manager for steady work and, in bad years, a couple of jobs priced at or near cost to keep a crew working. In six states from New Mexico to Mississippi, grant programs pay toward FORTIFIED roofs with no storm needed, for qualifying homeowners and certified roofers, while the money lasts.
We haven’t measured off-season calls for any client, and we don’t run crews, so on side work and crews I’m passing on what owners and public sources report.
Winter cuts hail searches by about 70% and repair searches by far less
Google Trends scores search interest from 0 to 100, which shows when people search without giving a count. I averaged 2022 to 2024 and divided winter interest (December to February) by spring interest (April to June):
| Search | US | DFW | Minneapolis |
|---|---|---|---|
| roof repair | 91% | 85% | 53% |
| roof replacement | 87% | 69% | 50% |
| hail damage | 30% | 29% | 14% |
I left 2025 out because every roofing term jumped two to three times at once from mid-2025, which looks like a change in Google’s data. Trends also works from a sample, so a second pull in October 2026 moved most of these by 3 points or less and Minneapolis repair to 60%. Google’s keyword estimates show the same swing in counts for a narrower phrase: about 210 US searches for “roofing hail damage insurance” in January 2026 and 1,000 in April. Google’s Keyword Planner is free and shows monthly search estimates for your own area, once you have a Google Ads account with billing set up.
Roofing payroll swings far more in cold states than in Texas
Bureau of Labor Statistics counts show US roofing payroll rising 12.7% from January to August 2024, from 230,836 jobs to 260,215, and 9.6% from February to July 2025 before falling back to 241,244 in December. From the 2025 low to the high, roofing payroll rose 52.5% in Minnesota, 45.6% in Illinois, 39.5% in New York, 35.8% in Wisconsin and 32.4% in Michigan, against 6.7% in Texas and 9.1% in Oklahoma. Texas roofing payroll also grew all year, so less of its 6.7% was seasonal.
These counts cover W-2 jobs only and leave out 1099 sub crews and owners, so the real swing is probably larger. For one owner on r/smallbusiness the dip was total: by mid-January 2026, the winter hadn’t brought a single roofing job.
DFW’s large hail has swung from 4 reports a year to 74 since 2015
I counted NOAA reports of hail 1.75 inches or larger, a size that usually damages shingles, in Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties from 2015 to 2025. Apart from the three years with 8 or fewer and 2023’s 74, the counts ran from 21 to 54. These are spotter reports, and busy areas phone in more of them, so the counts are rough. The same NOAA files list every report by state and county, so you can count your own area’s lean years.
A North Texas roofer wrote on r/RoofingSales in August 2026 that a May storm had brought the first damaging hail in about two years, and that when they went looking for jobs, crews were coming in from San Antonio, about six hours away.
Florida roofing payroll fell 21.8% from February 2025 to March 2026, from 43,851 to 34,284 on preliminary figures. That stretch followed the 2024 hurricanes and ran through 2025, which NOAA says was the first Atlantic season since 2015 with no hurricane landfall in the continental US. The payroll counts don’t say why it fell.
A quiet storm year still leaves a lot of worn roofs
Verisk’s 2026 US Roof Report found that insurance claim volume fell nearly 20% in 2025, while the average residential roof replacement cost reached $17,631, about 33% above the 2021 to 2024 average. Those are insurance figures, so cash jobs aren’t in them.
Verisk’s aerial imagery put 38% of US homes at moderate to poor roof condition in 2025. Roofs 31 years or older make up 18% of the Northeast’s roofs and 17% of the Midwest’s, against 11% in the West and 4% in the South, where 28% are four years old or less. So in the South a retail pitch rests more on what the inspection finds than on the roof’s age.
A Florida contractor of about 13 years wrote on r/RoofingSales in 2025 that he has sold tens of millions of dollars in hurricane seasons and lives on retail between storms. He added that retail is getting to where it no longer makes sense. Selling Retail Roofs When Insurance Work Slows goes through selling to homeowners who pay out of pocket.
For cold-weather installs, Owens Corning says its shingles’ sealant strip may not seal at 40°F or below until it warms up and recommends hand sealing every shingle along the roof perimeter, so price that labor into a winter bid.
Spring hail can still turn into a fall or winter claim
The Texas Department of Insurance says some policies set a one-year deadline to file unless the homeowner can show good cause for the delay, and TWIA wind and hail policyholders have one year from the date of damage. On those policies, April hail can still be claimed in October or January. These are Texas rules and deadlines vary by policy, so wherever you work, have the homeowner check theirs before you promise anything. The houses you inspected after a spring storm, where the owner never filed, are worth a second call in the fall.
NRCA recommends a fall roof inspection that many homeowners skip
The National Roofing Contractors Association recommends a roof inspection at least twice a year, preferably in spring and fall, plus after hail or a hurricane. Its magazine says contractors find many homeowners skip routine inspections, and it compares a roof program to regular HVAC service.
An owner who gets through winter on summer earnings wrote on r/sweatystartup that he picks up small repairs when they come and has no good way to bring more in. Offering past customers a fall inspection is one way to try. I couldn’t find public figures on what roofers charge for a maintenance plan or how many homeowners buy one, so ask an owner who sells them before you price yours.
Winter side work can sell, and I found nothing on what it pays
A contractor pricing roof shoveling and ice dam removal in February 2025 wrote on r/Contractor that customers were still booking with a wait of a week or more. A solo retail roofer with no damaging hail near him in three years wrote on r/Construction in May 2026 that he was weighing a gutter machine for when roofing slows. I found no public numbers on what gutters, Christmas lights, snow removal or ice dam work pays a roofer once labor is counted.
FORTIFIED grants pay toward new roofs in six states without a storm
The Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas FORTIFIED Fund pays up to $17,000 per home toward a FORTIFIED roof, for owner-occupied homes in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and New Mexico with household income at or below 120% of the area median. Homeowners reach it only through member banks. The bank set aside $10 million for 2026, first come first served, and when I checked in October its page listed $0 available as of July 1, 2026.
Oklahoma’s Strengthen Oklahoma Homes program pays up to $10,000 per household for a FORTIFIED roof, and contractors apply with an Oklahoma CIB license number and a FORTIFIED Roofer ID. On June 29, 2026 the Oklahoma Insurance Department said more than $4 million had gone into 400 FORTIFIED roofs and that homeowners were saving an average of $720 a year on insurance. It opened a new round on July 13.
IBHS has required FORTIFIED-certified contractors since November 1, 2025, so neither program is open to a roofer without certification. I couldn’t confirm whether Oklahoma’s round has money left for late 2026.
Move winter ad money from hail searches to repair searches
Hail searches keep under a third of their spring level in winter, and repair searches keep far more of theirs, so put winter ad money on repair and replacement terms. Ads can’t bring back homeowners who have stopped looking. An employee of a Northeast roofing and windows company wrote on r/RoofingSales in October 2025 that homeowners there stop wanting new roofs once October comes, even with Google Ads, LSA, Meta ads, SEO and lead vendors all running.
A Northern California home improvement sales manager on r/RoofingSales blames his phones going quiet every November to May on the stretch between property tax deadlines and tax refunds. The dates fit his theory: California property tax installments go delinquent on December 10 and April 10, and most Texas property taxes are due by January 31. By March 6, 2026 the IRS had paid $160.8 billion in refunds, about half of what it had paid by May 8. Nothing I found ties refunds to roof purchases, so check the theory against your own signed jobs by month.
A former owner priced jobs at cost in bad years to keep crews busy
A former roofing company owner on r/Roofing warned of “years where you can spend all day just praying for a phone call.” In those years his company took on a couple of projects at cost or close to it, he wrote, so the crew stayed busy and kept its wages up. He also wrote that getting in with even one large property manager can nearly keep a single crew busy all year, and How Residential Roofers Win Commercial Roofing Work covers how to get in.
A job at cost keeps the crew paid and leaves little or nothing for overhead, and a roofing owner of more than 30 years wrote on YouTube that winter is when those bills come due and the work stops. We don’t run crews, so I can’t tell you how to price a near-cost job or what keeps a crew from leaving. How to Find and Keep Reliable Roofing Sub Crews covers what owners report.
Plan January in the fall, while the phone still rings
- Line up your inspections and signed jobs by month for the last two or three years, so you know how deep your own slow months run.
- Call back the houses you inspected after spring storms where the owner never filed, and have each homeowner check their policy’s deadline.
- Offer every past customer a fall inspection.
- In the six FORTIFIED grant states, look into certification and ask whether this year’s grant money is gone.
A homeowner with a January leak still searches for “roof repair”. To see where you show up for that search, run the free Google Maps heatmap: pick your Google profile and a search, and in a few minutes you’ll see your rank at 49 points around your office.