Iowa County, Wisconsin · Dodgeville
Water spreading, a burst pipe, sewage, mold or smoke? Call to be connected with a restoration company that serves Dodgeville, Mineral Point and Barneveld. Start the steps below while you wait.
Answered 24/7 by a participating local provider. We're a referral service and don't do the work ourselves. How it works
Start here
Pick the closest match. These steps limit the damage and protect your insurance claim. Skip anything that isn't safe.
Iowa County averages 64 nights a year at 20°F or colder, mostly November to March, and 38% of its homes predate 1960.
Heavy rain days of an inch or more come about 8.5 times a year here, most often in July. A sump pump that hasn't run since last season is a common weak point.
Backups often follow heavy rain, which Iowa County gets about 8.5 days a year, when storm water overloads sewer mains and pushes up through the lowest drain in the house.
In Iowa County, 3.27 inches fell on the wettest day of the 2015–2024 record. Storms like that, and ice dams in snowy winters, cause most roof leaks.
36% of occupied homes in Iowa County heat mainly with wood or propane, above the Wisconsin county median of 32.9%.
Muggy summer nights, lows of 65°F or more, come about 20 times a year in Iowa County. Mold after a leak spreads fastest from June through August.
Local risk profile
With 11,108 homes and around 23,867 residents, Iowa County is 763 square miles of southern Wisconsin. Besides Dodgeville, the county seat, the biggest communities are Mineral Point, Barneveld and Arena. Half the homes here were built before 1975, half after.
65/100 Water Damage Risk Index: Elevated Iowa County ranks 7 of 72 Wisconsin counties. See the statewide ranking and method.The three factors where Iowa County ranks highest compared with other Wisconsin counties.
Winters here are on the gentler end for Wisconsin, and pipes still freeze. In the 2015–2024 record the county logged about 64 nights a year at or below 20°F (52nd of 72) and 148 below freezing. Twenty degrees is roughly where uninsulated pipes start to freeze.
Cold snaps are the real risk. The worst in the record lasted 17 days below freezing (ending February 2019), and the low bottomed out near -33°F on January 31, 2019.
The freeze season here runs November to March, with January the coldest. If you travel then, leave the thermostat at 55°F or above and open sink cabinets on outside walls.
Freezing nights typically start around Oct 15 and end around May 3.
Heavy rain is a bigger factor here than in most of Wisconsin. Of roughly 38.2 inches of yearly precipitation, the damage comes from the 8.5 days a year with an inch or more, ranked 8th of 72. July, August and September see the most. The single wettest day in the record: 3.27 inches, July 20, 2017. The worst three-day stretch dropped 5.09 inches, ending July 22, 2017, the kind of soaking that overwhelms sump pumps and storm sewers.
The temperature crosses 32°F in both directions on roughly 98 days a year. Each cycle melts and refreezes water at roof edges and in foundation cracks, which is how ice dams and basement seepage get started.
Housing
Roughly 56% of the county's housing was built before 1980. That puts Iowa near the middle of Wisconsin's 72 counties.
In Iowa County 38% of homes are older than 1960. If yours is one of them and the plumbing has never been replaced, expect galvanized steel supply pipe and cast iron drain lines, the two materials most likely to fail quietly.
24% date from 1980 to 1999, the window when polybutylene, a gray flexible plastic supply pipe, was used in some homes. It's prone to leaks at the fittings, so it's worth checking for in a house from those years.
Beyond water
About 20 nights a year in Iowa County stay at 65°F or warmer, a sign of muggy summer air (9th of 72 counties). July is the wettest month. The EPA recommends keeping indoor humidity below 60%, ideally 30 to 50%. Basements can pass 60% on their own in summer, so a dehumidifier matters even without a leak, and anything wet should be dried within 24 to 48 hours.
Mold remediation: what to expectBy main heating fuel, Iowa County homes break down as 47% utility gas, 11% electric, 29% propane and 7% wood. Most homes here heat with gas or electricity, so cooking and electrical faults are the likelier fire sources. Even a contained kitchen fire can send soot through the ductwork to every room.
Fire and smoke cleanup: first stepsCoverage
Calls connect to restoration companies that work across Iowa County. The largest communities by population:
Population from ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates. Townships and unincorporated areas are covered too.
Nearby
Richland and Sauk get more pipe-freeze nights than Iowa. Lafayette County has the oldest housing nearby, with 67% of homes built before 1980.
By the numbers
| Factor | Iowa | Wisconsin median | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homes built before 1960 | 38% | 31% | 21 of 72 |
| Homes built before 1980 | 56% | 54% | 31 of 72 |
| Homes built 2000 or later | 21% | 21% | 39 of 72 |
| Manufactured or mobile homes | 3.6% | 4.8% | 48 of 72 |
| Vacant homes | 8.9% | 12% | 42 of 72 |
| Wood or propane heat | 36% | 33% | 32 of 72 |
| Nights at 20°F or colder | 64/yr | 73/yr | 52 of 72 |
| Days with 1 inch+ of rain | 8.5/yr | 6.3/yr | 8 of 72 |
| Freeze-thaw days | 98/yr | 94/yr | 15 of 72 |
| Muggy nights (65°F+) | 20/yr | 11/yr | 9 of 72 |
Rank 1 is the highest value. Bars run from the lowest to the highest Wisconsin county; the tick marks the median; orange means higher water damage risk than the median, green means lower.
Questions
Peak risk months in Iowa County: freezing from November to March, heavy rain in July, August and September.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 5-year estimates (2020-2024); weather from NOAA nClimGrid-Daily county averages (EpiNOAA), 2015–2024, averaged across the county; county boundaries from Census TIGER. Reviewed 2026-10-21. Methodology