The Roofing Wire, the National Roofing Directory's weekly for the roofing trade

Three things, one sign-up

The newsletter page describes the Wire as weekly, free, requiring no account, with one-click unsubscribe. It comes in three parts.

The weekly issue, published in full

Each issue is posted on the National Roofing Directory complete on the day it is dated, every department and every story, at its own permanent address. It is free to read whether or not you subscribe, and subscribers get no story that the website lacks.

Storm Watch, every Monday

The part that comes to you is Storm Watch: one email a week listing the active National Weather Service watches, warnings and advisories for the states you choose, reproduced as the Weather Service issued them, with the event, the area and the effective and expiry times. It also carries the smoke and fire lane and anything new in NRD's document library. The Wire does not lay its own severity rating over the alerts or claim that any particular roof was hit.

A tool, given away every month

One tool a month is drawn at random from confirmed subscribers. Being a confirmed subscriber is the entry: no purchase and nothing else to fill in, open to U.S. residents 18 and older. The draw is set up to be checked. A random seed is generated when the month opens and its SHA-256 fingerprint is published at once; the winning position is then derived from that seed and a fingerprint of the entrant list. Each result is published with the seed, the list fingerprint, the number of entrants and the winning position, while the list itself stays private.

Get Storm Watch and the weekly issue: subscribe here.

What an issue contains

A Wire issue is organized into departments. Issue 014 opened with The Lead, then ran:

• OSHA Watch for the latest federal and state-plan enforcement actions that touch a roofing crew, dated because they do not arrive on a weekly rhythm.
• Notable Weather for what the Storm Prediction Center logged over the past seven days and what is running now.
• Biggest Hail for the largest stone reported in the country that week.
• The Numbers, which the issue describes as counted rather than estimated; a figure the desk cannot compute does not appear.
• Industry News from the trade press, one story per publisher.
• New Technology for software, solar, drones and the rest.
• Who Got Sued? for courts, carriers and coverage fights.
• Roofers Being Roofers, posts from public roofing groups in their authors' own words.
• Policy Desk for politics, legislation and enforcement, filed at the back.

Every headline links to the publisher that ran it, and storm figures are reproduced as the Weather Service and SPC issued them.

Inside this site

The latest issue

Issue 014 was published on Monday, 7 September 2026, with 13 stories across nine departments. Its lead was an OSHA enforcement case against a Florida residential roofing company over fall protection, and its weather desk counted 151 hail reports and 1,858 wind reports in a week. Read the department-by-department summary.

The storm desk

The Wire's weekly storm numbers are preliminary reports, not the final federal record. The storm desk page explains the difference between the Storm Prediction Center's daily report lists and NOAA's Storm Events Database, and how a contractor should read each one. See how the Wire counts storms.

For contractors

The Wire is published by the National Roofing Directory, which also runs contractor listings, a roofing jobs board, a marketplace for equipment and materials, and an open trade board. See what the directory offers a roofing company.

What happens to your address

The National Roofing Directory spells out the terms on its newsletter page:

• You confirm first. Signing up sends a link, and nothing else is sent until you click it, so nobody can subscribe you by typing in your address.
• The list is not sold. NRD says it is not sold to sponsors, members or anyone else. It stores your address, the states you picked, and the time, IP address and page where you agreed.
• Leaving takes one click. Every email has an unsubscribe link that works on the first click, with no login and no reason required.

For live alerts between issues, the National Roofing Directory's Storm Center shows active NWS alerts by state.

Frequently asked questions

Is The Roofing Wire free?

Yes. The weekly issue, the Monday Storm Watch email and the monthly giveaway entry are all free, according to the National Roofing Directory's newsletter page.

Do I need an account to read an issue?

No. Every issue is published in full on the National Roofing Directory and can be read without an account or a subscription. Subscribing adds the Storm Watch email and the giveaway.

How do I choose the states for Storm Watch?

You pick them when you sign up. Storm Watch then lists the active National Weather Service alerts for those states each Monday.

How is the giveaway winner picked?

At random from confirmed subscribers, using a seed whose fingerprint is published when the month opens. The giveaway page sets out the method and links the official rules.

Where do I subscribe?

On the National Roofing Directory: subscribe to The Roofing Wire. You will get a confirmation link first.