Homes about to electrify, panels, storage, service capacity, EV.
A roof replaced in the last 18 months with no solar on record, or a panel upgrade that just opened up service capacity.
3,036 filings across 5 metros mention this trade's work.
One counted query per city against its own permit descriptions, run when this page was last rebuilt. It is the size of the pool, not the size of your feed: scoring and per-rule exclusions cut it down from here.
| Metro | All permits | Mention this trade | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago | 6,358 | 1,177 | 19% |
| New York City | 17,502 | 973 | 6% |
| Austin | 7,980 | 819 | 10% |
| Los Angeles | 15,060 | 65 | 0% |
| Seattle | 1,477 | 2 | 0% |
5 filings worth a call, and the weight each one carries.
These are the rules, not a summary of them. A filing has to match one of them on its own text before it costs anything to score, which is why the feed is short enough to work through and why a rep is not paid to read a fence permit.
Solar PV install
Direct solar permit, the homeowner has already chosen an installer, so this is a competitive-displacement or attach lead.
matches: solar · photovoltaic · pv system · solar panel
excludes: solar water · solar thermal · pool heat
Battery storage
Storage without solar on record is the strongest solar attach signal there is.
matches: battery · energy storage · powerwall · storage system
Service capacity upgrade
A service upgrade removes the single most common blocker to a solar install.
matches: main panel · panel upgrade · service upgrade · electrical service · 200 amp · 400 amp
EV charger
EV owners adopt solar at several times the base rate, and the load increase makes the economics obvious.
matches: ev charger · electric vehicle · evse · level 2 charger · car charger
Roof replacement (solar precursor)
A new roof with no solar is the classic precursor: the structure is sound and the homeowner is already spending on the envelope.
matches: reroof · re-roof · roof replacement · new roof · roofing · tear off
excludes: solar · photovoltaic
Context the filing alone does not carry.
The same permit is worth different amounts depending on what else has happened at that address. Every record is resolved to a property first, by assessor parcel number where the county publishes one, so the history is real rather than a string match on an address.
Recent roof, no solar on record
Service upgraded, no solar on record
Storage without generation
Job value at or above $100,000. Smaller bands score proportionally.
What the number tells a rep to do.
80 and above
Call today. The window on this one closes in days, usually because a contractor is already booking the follow-on work.
65 to 79
Work it this week. Real intent, but nothing about the record says it is about to be decided.
50 to 64
Sequence it. Worth an email and a follow-up, not worth a rep's afternoon.
Below 50
Monitor. Held in the index so a second filing at the same property can lift it later.
A solar permit means you already lost the deal.
By the time a homeowner pulls a solar permit they have signed with somebody. The record everyone buys is the record of a closed sale. What you want is the roof that was just replaced with no array on it: the structure is sound, the spend is proven, and no installer has been near the address.
In San Francisco that precursor pool is 3,445 roofing vs 566 solar over a year, roughly six times the size of the pool every installer in the city is fighting over.
DataSF, Building Permits dataset i98e-djp9What kind of filings become solar leads?
Solar PV install, Battery storage, Service capacity upgrade, EV charger, Roof replacement (solar precursor). Each is matched against the filing's own text, and a record matching none of them is dropped before any model sees it, so you are never charged for volume you would not have called.
How early do these arrive?
Permits are read from the city feed the morning they post, a median of a few hours after filing. Where a city legislates land use parcel by parcel, a scheduled hearing arrives weeks before the decision and months before any permit exists, which is the earliest a buying intention becomes public at all.
What makes one lead score higher than another?
Rule weight sets the floor, then the property's own history and the job value move it. A roof replaced in the last 18 months with no solar on record, or a panel upgrade that just opened up service capacity. A score of 65 is the line we call worth calling; 80 and above is worth calling today.
Is this the same list my competitors are buying?
No. Aggregators sell the same homeowner to three or four contractors and charge each of you per lead. Here a territory is a fixed monthly cost, and on Pro and above your segment in your geography is exclusive, enforced by a unique index in the database rather than by a promise in a contract.
Where does the data come from?
Municipal open-data APIs and council agenda systems, read directly. Chicago, New York City, Austin, Los Angeles, Seattle are live today. No scraping, no purchased lists, and no data broker between the city and your feed.
What if a filing has no owner contact?
Most do not, out of the box. Owner phone and email are bought per property on demand and cached forever after, so a property costs credits once no matter how many times your team opens it. Numbers flagged on a do-not-call or litigator list are struck through in the product and excluded from exports and webhooks entirely.
See what is filed in your ZIP today.
Live city data, scored for solar. No account, about ten seconds.