Danbury Numbers We Work From: Housing, Climate, Water, Permit Fees and Cost Benchmarks

Last reviewed 2026-07-25. Journalists, researchers, and community groups are welcome to cite any figure on this page with attribution and a link.

This page holds the numbers we cite across our other pages, in one place and with their sources: Census QuickFacts figures for Danbury and the eight towns, Danbury's NOAA climate normals, water hardness from Aquarion's 2025 reports, the permit fee bases each town publishes, and the cost benchmarks from Remodeling magazine, Angi, HomeAdvisor, Fixr, HomeGuide and Houzz. Nothing is estimated. Where we could not fetch a figure from a primary source, the table says so rather than filling the cell, which is why Danbury's own permit price list and the Danbury water hardness value are marked as not fetched.

Read the tables with their vintages. The QuickFacts rows are American Community Survey five-year figures for 2020-2024, which is why they differ from the one-year numbers a newspaper might quote; the climate rows are 1991-2020 normals; the cost rows are national or regional surveys, not our quotes. Our pricing page turns the cost benchmarks into a service-by-service table, and our permits and inspections guide explains what the fee bases pay for. For how these numbers change a full bathroom remodel we do in an older Danbury house, start with the housing table.

Housing and home values, Danbury and the eight towns

Danbury is the only one of the nine where detached single-family houses are a minority of the stock: the owner-occupied rate is 53.8% against 75.2% in Bethel and 91.7% in New Fairfield, and the 2019 ACS count in the regional housing plan puts only 42% of Danbury's 32,990 units in detached single-family houses, with 11% in two-family buildings and 11% in buildings of twenty or more units. Home values run from $391,500 in New Milford and $411,200 in Danbury to $836,200 in Ridgefield. When we scope a remodel the value matters twice: the 2012 NKBA budgeting article suggests spending 5 to 10 percent of a home's value on a bathroom, which at Danbury's median lands in the same band as the midrange Cost vs Value job cost, and the Cost vs Value tables show what share of that job cost comes back at resale.

Population, owner-occupied rate, home value and income are Census QuickFacts figures (ACS 5-year 2020-2024; population estimates V2025). Housing units are the 2020 Census counts in the Connecticut Department of Housing's 2024 Affordable Housing Appeals List. Sherman is below the QuickFacts threshold, so its population is the CT DPH July 1, 2024 estimate and its other cells come from the AdvanceCT/CTData 2024 Town Profile (ACS 2018-2022).

Danbury climate normals, NOAA 1991-2020

Danbury's station normals describe a heating-dominated climate: 5,777.1 heating degree days a year against 838.6 cooling degree days, a January mean of 28.0 F, 126 days a year with a low at or below freezing and 49.30 in. of snow. For a bathroom we translate the figures into three details. When your tub or shower sits on an exterior wall we insulate and air seal the cavity behind it, since the Connecticut plan-review checklist requires an air barrier separating showers and tubs from exterior walls. Connecticut sits in Climate Zone 5, where the IRC calls for a Class II or tighter interior vapor retarder on framed walls, so that is what we install. And we set any footing for a bathroom addition below the 42-inch frost depth cited in the state's 2005 code interpretation.

NOAA NCEI U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020 for station USC00061762, Danbury, CT, annual, seasonal and monthly datasets in standard units. The frost depth is from the 2005 state code interpretation; the current 2022 code table entry could not be quoted.

Water hardness by system, and who is on a well

Aquarion's 2025 water quality reports give hardness in grains per gallon: an average of 12 in Ridgefield with a range of 2 to 24, 9 in the Newtown Regional System that serves Bethel and Newtown, 16 in the New Milford Regional System that also serves Brookfield, and 9 in the small New Fairfield system that serves about 140 people. Aquarion notes hardness has no health effect and is not regulated, but USGS explains why it matters to your bathroom: heated hard water deposits calcium carbonate scale that shortens equipment life and clogs pipes, and soap reacts with calcium to form scum. Off the public systems it is wells: the Department of Public Health estimates 23% of Connecticut residents are on private wells, 3.9% of wells exceed the EPA arsenic limit and 4.7% exceed the uranium standard, and WestCOG reports 77% of Danbury residents have public water service.

Aquarion 2025 Water Quality Reports; Bethel Water Department page; WestCOG 2020-2030 Regional Plan. CT DPH estimates 23% of Connecticut residents have private wells. USGS hardness classes: 0 to 60 mg/L as calcium carbonate is soft, 61 to 120 moderately hard, 121 to 180 hard, more than 180 very hard; no fetched page gives the grains-per-gallon to mg/L conversion.

Permit fee bases by town

Connecticut leaves permit fees to each municipality under Section 109.2 of the 2022 Connecticut State Building Code, which also requires the adopted schedule to be posted in the building department. Two of the nine publish a per-thousand basis we could fetch: New Fairfield at $60.26 for the first $1,000 and $12.26 per $1,000 after, and Sherman at $30.00 for the first $1,000 and $12.00 per additional $1,000. Danbury's price list, effective July 1, 2024, exists on the city site but we could not retrieve it, so we left the Danbury cell blank by design. Every permit we pull also carries the state code training and education fee of 26 cents per $1,000 of construction value, assessed under the General Statutes and not waivable even where a town waives its own fee. The table lists the offices, portals and hours we deal with beside the fee basis.

Town building department pages and fee schedules as fetched; the 2022 Connecticut State Building Code, amended Section 109.2; DAS Office of Education and Data Management on the 26 cents per $1,000 education fee, which a municipality cannot waive.

Published remodel cost benchmarks

The benchmark table mixes four kinds of figure, and the distinction matters when you set our quote beside it. Remodeling magazine's Cost vs Value report prices a fixed scope, a 5 by 7 foot bathroom with a porcelain-on-steel tub, a 4 by 4 inch ceramic tile surround, a pressure-balanced valve, a standard toilet, a solid-surface vanity top and a ceramic tile floor, in a named region, so its New England and Hartford figures are the closest thing to a Connecticut number. Angi, HomeAdvisor, Fixr and HomeGuide publish national ranges built from their own project data, and HomeAdvisor and Angi share the same $12,151 average. Houzz reports median spend from 1,738 surveyed homeowners about 2024 projects. None is a Danbury quote; the Bureau of Labor Statistics May 2024 figure of $33.03 an hour for construction occupations in the Bridgeport-Stamford-Danbury metro, against $30.73 nationally, is the local adjustment the surveys lack.

Cost vs Value figures are from the 2025 report's national, New England, Hartford CT and New York NY tables. Angi, HomeAdvisor, Fixr and HomeGuide figures carry the guide's update date. Houzz figures are medians reported by 1,738 surveyed homeowners for 2024 projects.

Sources & Methodology

Every figure above was taken from the primary sources below (accessed 2026-07-25). Where a number is derived (arithmetic on published figures) or covers a broader period or area, the text says so.

1. Census QuickFacts: Danbury city, Connecticut (ACS 5-year 2020-2024; population estimates V2025) — The Bethel, Brookfield, New Fairfield, Ridgefield, Newtown, New Milford and Redding town tables sit at the same address pattern.
2. Connecticut Department of Housing, 2024 Affordable Housing Appeals List (2020 Census housing-unit counts)
3. AdvanceCT and CTData, Sherman, Connecticut 2024 Town Profile (ACS 2018-2022)
4. Connecticut DPH, Estimated Populations in Connecticut as of July 1, 2024
5. Western Connecticut Regional Affordable Housing Plan, draft November 2021, Table 6 (2019 ACS units in structure)
6. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USC00061762 (Danbury, CT)
7. Connecticut Office of the State Building Inspector, code interpretation I-12-05 (frost depth for footings)
8. Aquarion Water Company, 2025 Water Quality Reports for Connecticut systems (Ridgefield, Newtown Regional, New Milford Regional, New Fairfield)
9. Connecticut DPH press release of April 6, 2021 on private wells; USGS Water Science School, Hardness of Water
10. WestCOG, 2020-2030 Regional Plan of Conservation and Development (adopted)
11. 2022 Connecticut State Building Code (amended Sections 105.2 and 109.2); DAS Office of Education and Data Management, code training and education fee — The education fee page: portal.ct.gov/DAS/OEDM/Code-Training-and-Education-Fees-Assessed-on-Municipal-Building-Permits.
12. Town of New Fairfield Building Department (fee schedule effective 4/2025); Town of Sherman; Ridgefield Planning and Zoning fee schedule (June 30, 2026); Newtown, New Milford, Bethel and Brookfield building department pages
13. Remodeling magazine, 2025 Cost vs Value report (national, New England, Hartford CT, Middle Atlantic and New York NY tables), via JLC
14. Angi (July 2026), HomeAdvisor (June 2026), Fixr (January 2026) and HomeGuide (June 2025) bathroom remodel cost guides; Houzz 2025 U.S. Bathroom Trends Study
15. BLS Occupational Employment and Wages, Bridgeport-Stamford-Danbury MSA, May 2024 (news release of April 29, 2025)