Roofing in Wisconsin Dells

A Town That Renamed Itself For Marketing In 1931, And It Worked

This was Kilbourn City when it was founded in 1856, shortened to Kilbourn in 1895, and it stayed Kilbourn until 1931 — when the town changed its name to Wisconsin Dells to sell itself to tourists. That is one of the more brazen pieces of civic branding in American history and it is difficult to argue it did not work.

What they were selling was the gorge: the Dells of the Wisconsin River, a run of sandstone formations the Ho-Chunk called Nĭĭš hakiisŭc, rocks close together. The reason the world heard about it is a photographer. H.H. Bennett bought a studio here in 1865 and his prints of the rock formations circulated across the United States, which turned a river gorge into a destination decades before anybody built a hotel. His studio is still standing and run by the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Then in 1994 the Polynesian Resort opened the first indoor waterpark in the country, and the town became the self-declared Waterpark Capital of the World.

Here is what all of that means for roofs, and it makes the Dells unlike anywhere else we work. The permanent population is 2,942. The building stock is nothing like a town of 2,942. There is a small residential core, and then an enormous inventory of cabins, cottages, condominiums, seasonal rentals and small commercial buildings sized for a population many times larger. And a great deal of it is empty for months at a time.

An unoccupied building does not report a leak. That is the single most important fact about roofing here. A shingle lifts in a November windstorm, water gets into the decking, and nobody opens the door until April — by which point a repair has become a decking job and possibly a mold job. On an owner-occupied house somebody sees the ceiling stain in a week. On a rental cottage that closed for the season, nobody sees anything until the damage has had a winter to work.

The other oddity: the city spans four counties. Columbia holds 2,449 of the residents, Sauk 384, Adams 105 and Juneau four. Which county your building sits in changes the permitting, and it is not always the one you would guess from the address.

Do You Need A Roofing Permit In Wisconsin Dells?

Yes. The City of Wisconsin Dells requires a permit to re-roof — City of Wisconsin Dells — Building Permit FAQ: “In addition, you must also get a permit when re-roofing your house, replacing siding and/or windows.” We pull it before the crew arrives and it is a line item on your estimate rather than a surprise; a permit pulled by the homeowner makes the homeowner responsible for code compliance on somebody else’s work.

Questions go to Planning and Zoning on 608-253-2542. The answer differs town to town because SPS 320.09(2)(b) leaves permits for alterations and repairs to local ordinance.

Which county your parcel is in is a separate question, and in the Dells it is genuinely not obvious — the city sits across Columbia, Sauk, Adams and Juneau counties, and the county sets the zoning authority. We establish it before anything is ordered.

Two Inspections A Year, At Close-Up And Open-Up: The Offer For A Seasonal Building

Buildings that empty out for months fail differently from lived-in houses, and the fix is not a better roof. It is looking at the roof twice a year, at the two moments when it costs almost nothing to find a problem.

At close-up, before winter. Gutters cleared, because a full gutter is where an ice dam gets its start. Every slope walked and photographed. Loose or creased shingles fixed while a ladder is already up. Flashing and boots checked, since a cracked pipe boot is a twenty dollar part that will let water into a closed building for four months. Any tree limb that will be resting on the roof once it has snow on it, taken off.

At open-up, before the season. A second walk to see what winter did. Ice damming leaves marks at the eaves whether or not it got inside. Wind damage from a January storm is often the thing that shows up as a stain in June.

Two visits, photographs both times, and a written note of anything that changed. For an owner who is not local it is the difference between managing a building and discovering it — and on a property that generates income for four months of the year, a roof problem found in October is a repair while a roof problem found in May is a canceled booking.