Short answer: As of October 2026, the five highest-scoring roofing contractors in the Kingsport-Bristol, TN-VA metro on The Roofing Brief Contractor Score are Affordable Roofing (72.4), Vanderpool Roofing LLC (71.6), JS Construction Association Inc (64.1), Leonard Roofing (56.5), Vicars Roofing Company (47.9). Each holds a certification we verified on the manufacturer’s own register, every rating was corroborated elsewhere, and placement on this page is not for sale.
The Roofing Brief scored 6 certified roofing contractors serving the Kingsport metro on a published, reproducible formula, then researched each of the top five individually to confirm its record. The state line runs through the middle of this metro, and the two sides regulate roofers in opposite ways. In Tennessee a residential re-roof needs no state licence at all until the job reaches $25,000, and none of the three Tri-Cities Tennessee counties falls under the separate Home Improvement regime that would cover smaller work. Cross into Bristol, Abingdon or Scott County and Virginia requires a licence from the first dollar above $1,000, graded by class, with a roofing specialty designation and a compensation fund behind it. The same contractor, the same job, five miles apart: regulated from $1,000 on one side, unregulated up to $25,000 on the other.
The conditions a Kingsport roof has to be specified for
This is a wind metro in mountainous terrain. Across 2016 to 2025 the counties of this metro logged 43 hail reports against 188 severe thunderstorm and high wind reports and a single tornado, with $40,000 in reported property damage from those categories. Counting severe-weather reports of every kind together, July leads with 52, then May with 48 and August with 32. Mountain wind does not behave like plains wind: it accelerates over ridges and funnels along valleys, so damage concentrates on particular aspects and elevations rather than spreading evenly. The remnants of Hurricane Helene on 27 September 2024 illustrated it precisely. NWS Storm Data records a high wind event in Sullivan County with an estimated 70 mph gust and a narrative describing an early estimate of a thousand trees felled by winds up to an estimated 80 mph, primarily at higher elevations. Elevation, not distance from the storm, decided who lost trees and roofs.
On the Tennessee side the licensing answer is close to nothing for most jobs. The Board for Licensing Contractors requires a licence once construction, remodelling or repair work totals $25,000 or more, and for roofing the classification that matters is BC-21 Roofing, defined as roofing over $25,000. Tennessee also runs a separate Home Improvement licence for residential work between $3,000 and $24,999, with roofing explicitly covered, but it applies in only nine counties: Bradley, Davidson, Hamilton, Haywood, Knox, Marion, Robertson, Rutherford and Shelby. Sullivan, Hawkins and Washington counties are all absent from that list. So a typical Kingsport re-roof, priced under $25,000, requires no state licence of any kind, and the credential you are left checking is the manufacturer certification and the insurance certificate.
On the Virginia side the answer is the opposite. Virginia requires a contractor licence from the first dollar above $1,000, with no trade threshold, and grades licences Class A, B or C by the value of a single project and of annual work, so the class caps what a firm may lawfully contract for. Specialty designations sit on top, and the one for roofing is ROC. Worth correcting a common error: ROC is roofing, while RFC under 18VAC50-22 is recreational facility contracting, a different designation entirely. Virginia also operates a Contractor Transaction Recovery Fund, financed by assessments on licensees, which compensates homeowners who obtain an unsatisfied judgment against a licensed contractor for improper or dishonest conduct. There is no Tennessee equivalent.
Two of the contractors ranked below are Virginia businesses with verified Virginia licences, and both carry Class A standing so neither is value-capped. None of the Tennessee firms could be verified against the Tennessee register at all, because the state’s verification portal sits behind a challenge that cannot be queried and the Board’s public dashboard was unreachable throughout our research. That is a limitation of our access rather than a finding about those companies, but it does mean that on the Tennessee side of this metro the licence is both rarely required and, in practice, hard for a homeowner to check. The median year built is 1976 in Sullivan County, 1984 in Hawkins, 1986 in Washington County Tennessee, 1981 in Washington County Virginia and 1974 in Scott County.
The 5 best roofers in Kingsport, TN
Scored 2026-10-01. The metro mean rating used as the Bayesian prior for Kingsport is 4.557, across a pool of 6 certified contractors.
| Rank | Company | TRB Score | Certification | Rating (reviews) | Adjusted | In business since | Based in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Affordable Roofing | 72.4 | Master Elite | 4.9 (52) | 4.732 | not published | Gray, TN |
| 2 | Vanderpool Roofing LLC | 71.6 | Master Elite | 4.6 (157) | 4.59 | 1988 | Kingsport, TN |
| 3 | JS Construction Association Inc | 64.1 | Master Elite | 4.6 (223) | 4.592 | 2008 | Abingdon, VA |
| 4 | Leonard Roofing | 56.5 | Master Elite | 4.3 (56) | 4.421 | not published | Bristol, VA |
| 5 | Vicars Roofing Company | 47.9 | Certified | 4.4 (13) | 4.525 | not published | Church Hill, TN |
1. Affordable Roofing — TRB Score 72.4
Affordable Roofing is based in Gray, TN, Not accredited, B+ rating, and holds Master Elite standing on the GAF certification registry.
| Score component | Points | Max |
|---|---|---|
| Certification tier | 24 | 35 |
| Adjusted rating | 29.3 | 40 |
| Review corpus depth | 11.0 | 15 |
| Metro proximity | 8.1 | 10 |
| Total | 72.4 | 100 |
Independently corroborated:
- Profile at 362 Emmett Rd, Bristol, Tennessee, matching the registry telephone number, rated B+ and not accredited.. BBB business profile
- GAF lists Affordable Roofing of Gray, TN in its residential contractor directory at Master Elite level.. GAF contractor directory
What they actually do. Residential roof replacement and repair across the Tri-Cities.
Why it ranks here. The top score in the metro on Master Elite certification and 4.9 across 52 reviews, the highest rating among the Tennessee firms here.
Best fit for: Homeowners who obtain the licence position and the insurance certificate directly before engaging.
What we would want clarified. Its Better Business Bureau rating of B+ is the lowest of the contractors ranked on this page, and it is not accredited. We could not verify any Tennessee licence for it, because the state’s verification portal could not be queried, and the licence field on its GAF listing reads as a waiver, which is a registry field rather than evidence of licensure. It publishes no founding year, names no principal, and holds no manufacturer credential outside GAF. Its BBB address is in Bristol while its registry listing gives Gray, about 20 miles apart. We publish this because a ranking that only prints the flattering findings is an advertisement, not an assessment.
Verify the certification yourself on the GAF registry listing. The number carried on that listing is (423) 646-1126, which is the registry’s contact line and is often a directory tracking number rather than the contractor’s own: take the number from the company’s own website and compare the two.
2. Vanderpool Roofing LLC — TRB Score 71.6
Vanderpool Roofing LLC is based in Kingsport, TN, in business since 1988, led by Chad Culbertson, Owner, BBB accredited since 29 January 1997, A+ rating, and holds Master Elite standing on the GAF certification registry.
| Score component | Points | Max |
|---|---|---|
| Certification tier | 24 | 35 |
| Adjusted rating | 23.6 | 40 |
| Review corpus depth | 14.0 | 15 |
| Metro proximity | 10.0 | 10 |
| Total | 71.6 | 100 |
Independently corroborated:
- Accredited since 29 January 1997 with an A+ rating, recording the business as started in 1988, at 117 Regional Park Drive, Kingsport.. BBB business profile
- GAF lists Vanderpool Roofing LLC of Kingsport, TN in its residential contractor directory at Master Elite level.. GAF contractor directory
What they actually do. Residential and commercial roof replacement and repair.
Why it ranks here. The longest-established business in the metro at 37 years, and the longest Better Business Bureau accreditation of any contractor on this page by a wide margin, running back to January 1997, at A+. It is also the only firm ranked here actually based in Kingsport itself, with Master Elite certification and 157 reviews.
Best fit for: The default first call in Kingsport, on the longest accredited local record in the metro.
What we would want clarified. Its 4.6 rating is mid-range rather than strong. No Tennessee licence could be verified for it: numbers circulate in secondary listings but the state register could not be queried, so we have not asserted them. It publishes no manufacturer credential outside GAF. We publish this because a ranking that only prints the flattering findings is an advertisement, not an assessment.
Verify the certification yourself on the GAF registry listing. The number carried on that listing is (423) 392-4170, which is the registry’s contact line and is often a directory tracking number rather than the contractor’s own: take the number from the company’s own website and compare the two.
3. JS Construction Association Inc — TRB Score 64.1
JS Construction Association Inc is based in Abingdon, VA, in business since 2008, led by Jesse Smith, President, BBB accredited, A rating, and holds Master Elite standing on the GAF certification registry.
Certifications held: Master Elite (GAF), Virginia contractor licence 2705152560, Class A, verified on the DPOR lookup. Certification by more than one manufacturer is uncommon and requires meeting each programme’s separate standards for insurance, training and track record.
| Score component | Points | Max |
|---|---|---|
| Certification tier | 24 | 35 |
| Adjusted rating | 23.7 | 40 |
| Review corpus depth | 15.0 | 15 |
| Metro proximity | 1.4 | 10 |
| Total | 64.1 | 100 |
Independently corroborated:
- Virginia contractor licence 2705152560, Class A, holding Alternative Energy Systems, Commercial Building, Electrical and Residential Building specialties, expiring 31 January 2028. DPOR records three complaints closed, two in 2021 and one in 2015, all with no disciplinary action.. Virginia DPOR License Lookup
- Accredited with an A rating at the Abingdon address.. BBB business profile
What they actually do. Roof replacement alongside commercial building, electrical and alternative energy systems work.
Why it ranks here. The broadest licensed scope on this page: a Class A Virginia licence verified by number carrying four specialty designations, including Electrical and Alternative Energy Systems alongside Residential and Commercial Building. For a roof that involves solar, or a job where electrical work sits alongside the covering, that combination is held by nobody else here. Seventeen years of trading, BBB accredited, and 223 reviews, the deepest record among the firms ranked.
Best fit for: Virginia-side homeowners, and any job combining roofing with electrical or solar work.
What we would want clarified. Its published service area names Abingdon, Virginia and we found no evidence that Tennessee is inside it, nor any Tennessee licence, so if your house is on the Tennessee side confirm both before engaging. Its DPOR record shows three complaints closed, two in 2021 and one in 2015, all resolved with no disciplinary action; we report them because Virginia publishes them. Its BBB rating of A is a notch below the A+ ratings elsewhere on this page, its 4.6 rating is mid-range, and its BBB telephone number differs from the registry listing. We publish this because a ranking that only prints the flattering findings is an advertisement, not an assessment.
Verify the certification yourself on the GAF registry listing. The number carried on that listing is (276) 345-9414, which is the registry’s contact line and is often a directory tracking number rather than the contractor’s own: take the number from the company’s own website and compare the two.
4. Leonard Roofing — TRB Score 56.5
Leonard Roofing is based in Bristol, VA, led by Dennis Leonard, President, BBB accredited, A+ rating, and holds Master Elite standing on the GAF certification registry.
Certifications held: Master Elite (GAF), Virginia contractor licence 2705047977, Class A with the Roofing (ROC) specialty, verified on the DPOR lookup. Certification by more than one manufacturer is uncommon and requires meeting each programme’s separate standards for insurance, training and track record.
| Score component | Points | Max |
|---|---|---|
| Certification tier | 24 | 35 |
| Adjusted rating | 16.9 | 40 |
| Review corpus depth | 11.2 | 15 |
| Metro proximity | 4.4 | 10 |
| Total | 56.5 | 100 |
Independently corroborated:
- Virginia contractor licence 2705047977, Class A, holding both the Roofing (ROC) and Home Improvement (HIC) specialties, first certified 22 January 1999 and current to 30 June 2028. DPOR records two complaints closed, in 2020 and 2016, both with no disciplinary action.. Virginia DPOR License Lookup
- Accredited with an A+ rating at the Bristol, Virginia address.. BBB business profile
What they actually do. Residential roof replacement and repair, serving both sides of the Bristol state line.
Why it ranks here. The only contractor on this page holding Virginia’s roofing-specific ROC designation, at Class A so uncapped on project value, continuously certified since January 1999 and current to 2028. That is the most specific roofing credential available anywhere in this metro, and it sits alongside Master Elite certification, BBB accreditation at A+ and 26 years of licensure. Its own site states it is concurrently licensed, bonded and insured in both Tennessee and Virginia and brands itself as a Tri-City roofing contractor.
Best fit for: Bristol and the Virginia side, and the strongest verified roofing credential in the metro.
What we would want clarified. Its 4.3 rating across 56 reviews is the lowest on this page, which is why it ranks fourth despite the best credentials. Its claim to be concurrently licensed in Tennessee could not be confirmed, because the Tennessee register could not be queried. Its DPOR record shows two complaints closed, in 2020 and 2016, both with no disciplinary action. It publishes no founding year, with the BBB recording 1971 against a site claim of over 35 years. We publish this because a ranking that only prints the flattering findings is an advertisement, not an assessment.
Verify the certification yourself on the GAF registry listing. The number carried on that listing is (276) 466-2707, which is the registry’s contact line and is often a directory tracking number rather than the contractor’s own: take the number from the company’s own website and compare the two.
5. Vicars Roofing Company — TRB Score 47.9
Vicars Roofing Company is based in Church Hill, TN, and holds Certified standing on the GAF certification registry.
| Score component | Points | Max |
|---|---|---|
| Certification tier | 12 | 35 |
| Adjusted rating | 21.0 | 40 |
| Review corpus depth | 7.3 | 15 |
| Metro proximity | 7.6 | 10 |
| Total | 47.9 | 100 |
Independently corroborated:
- GAF lists Vicars Roofing Company of Church Hill, TN in its residential contractor directory.. GAF contractor directory
What they actually do. Residential roofing.
Why it ranks here. A GAF-certified contractor based in Church Hill, in Hawkins County, inside the metro.
Best fit for: Nothing we can responsibly recommend on the present record. Ask for everything in writing and verify it yourself.
What we would want clarified. Almost nothing about this company could be independently verified and we are flagging that rather than dressing it up. A Better Business Bureau search near Kingsport returns no profile for it at all, we located no company website, no Tennessee licence record could be obtained, and it is not listed by any chamber we checked. Its 13 reviews at 4.4 are the thinnest and weakest customer record on this page. None of that is evidence of a problem; it is an absence of the public record this page is built on, and on a job of this size we would want considerably more before committing. It ranks fifth because it is the fifth-placed certified contractor in a small pool, not because a comparison was won. We publish this because a ranking that only prints the flattering findings is an advertisement, not an assessment.
Verify the certification yourself on the GAF registry listing. The number carried on that listing is (423) 256-3202, which is the registry’s contact line and is often a directory tracking number rather than the contractor’s own: take the number from the company’s own website and compare the two.
The 188 wind reports that shape a Kingsport roof
Aggregate hail counts tell you very little about a specific roof. These are the individual events: every severe-weather report logged by the National Weather Service across the 5 counties of the Kingsport-Bristol, TN-VA statistical area over ten years, with the dates, the stone sizes and the towns they landed on. Over that decade the metro logged 43 hail reports, 188 severe thunderstorm and high wind reports and 1 tornado. The database’s property-damage fields are left blank for most of these reports, so it carries no usable loss total for this metro and we do not quote one.
The biggest hail to fall on Kingsport in a decade
| Date | Stone size | Reported near | County |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19 May 2022 | 2.0 in | Goshen | Hawkins |
| 19 June 2020 | 1.5 in | White Horn | Hawkins |
| 19 May 2022 | 1.5 in | Lynn Garden | Sullivan |
| 19 May 2022 | 1.5 in | Howard Hill | Sullivan |
| 19 May 2022 | 1.5 in | Long Is | Sullivan |
| 19 May 2022 | 1.5 in | Church Hill | Hawkins |
The largest stone on record for this metro fell on 19 May 2022 near Goshen, measured at 2.0 inches. That is hen-egg sized. Two inches is the threshold at which insurers expect functional damage and full replacement claims.
Wind. The strongest thunderstorm gust logged in the metro was 61 knots, about 70 mph, near Amis on 29 March 2020. Asphalt shingles begin lifting at roughly 67 mph when they are correctly nailed, and considerably below that when they are not.
Tornadoes. 1 tornado touched down in these counties over the decade, the strongest rated EF1 near Fraleytown on 16 May 2023.
What the National Weather Service wrote about it
The NWS logs a written account of each severe-weather episode. This is its description of the 11 January 2020 event near Click, reproduced verbatim:
Widespread wind damage reported between Church Hill and Mount Carmel. Damage location coincides with a bowing radar echo at 645 pm est.
That is what the specification has to anticipate here, written up by the agency that recorded it rather than by a contractor selling the repair.
When it happens. Severe weather reports cluster in July (52), May (48), August (32). The worst years on record were 2022 (38), 2016 (37), 2020 (30). If you are scheduling non-urgent work in Kingsport, the months outside that window are when crews are least stretched and least likely to be triaging emergency callouts ahead of your job.
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, county-level detail files 2016 to 2025, filtered to the counties of this statistical area by The Roofing Brief. Damage figures are as reported to the NWS and undercount insured losses.
What to do with this. Hail is not the governing risk in Kingsport. Weight your decision toward wind rating, ventilation and flashing detail rather than paying extra for impact-rated shingles.
The same roof, two states, five miles apart
Bristol is a single built-up area divided between Bristol, Tennessee and Bristol, Virginia. A contractor working here crosses a regulatory boundary several times a week, and so does the standard a homeowner can hold them to. On the Tennessee side, a $20,000 re-roof requires no state licence: the Board for Licensing Contractors threshold is $25,000, and the Home Improvement licence that would otherwise catch work from $3,000 upward applies in nine named counties, none of them in the Tri-Cities. On the Virginia side, the same $20,000 job requires a licence, because Virginia’s threshold is $1,000 with no trade exemption.
The two regimes also test different things. Both examine business and law knowledge and both require a financial showing. Virginia additionally requires documented years of trade experience from the qualified individual, scaled to the class applied for, and grades the licence by value so that the class itself tells a homeowner what size of job the firm may lawfully take on. Tennessee’s licence, where required, carries a monetary limit and a classification, with BC-21 the roofing-specific one.
And the recourse differs. Virginia’s Contractor Transaction Recovery Fund will compensate a homeowner who has obtained an unsatisfied court judgment against a licensed contractor for improper or dishonest conduct, funded by assessments on licensees rather than by taxation, with a claim to be filed within twelve months of the final judgment. Tennessee has no equivalent fund for this purpose. So on the Virginia side the licence carries a financial entitlement behind it; on the Tennessee side, below $25,000, there is no licence to carry anything.
What to ask therefore depends on your address. In Bristol, Abingdon or Scott County, ask for the DPOR licence number and then check the class on the public lookup, because an out-of-class contractor is contracting unlawfully and the Recovery Fund reaches only licensed ones. In Kingsport, Blountville or Church Hill, accept that below $25,000 there is probably no licence to check, and move the weight of your decision onto the things that do exist: the manufacturer certification, the certificate of insurance obtained from the insurer rather than the contractor, a written scope naming the underlayment and fastening schedule, and references from jobs on comparable houses. One further note for anyone close to the line: a contractor doing a $40,000 job in Kingsport and a $40,000 job in Bristol, Virginia needs a Tennessee licence with a roofing-capable classification for the first and a Virginia licence of adequate class for the second. Holding one does not confer the other.
What each state asks of a residential roofer
| Tennessee (Sullivan, Hawkins, Washington TN) | Virginia (Bristol, Abingdon, Scott) | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence threshold | $25,000. Below that, none required | $1,000, with no trade threshold |
| Home Improvement licence for smaller work | Exists, but only in nine counties, none of them here | Home Improvement (HIC) is a specialty designation on the licence |
| Roofing-specific classification | BC-21 Roofing, for roofing over $25,000 | Roofing (ROC) specialty. Note: RFC is recreational facilities, not roofing |
| Licence graded by value of work | Monetary limit set on the licence | Class A, B or C by single project and annual value |
| Compensation fund for homeowners | None for this purpose | Contractor Transaction Recovery Fund, judgment required, 12-month filing window |
Source: T.C.A. 62-6-501(4)(A) and the Tennessee Board for Licensing Contractors classification outline; Code of Virginia 54.1-1100 and 54.1-1118 to 54.1-1123; 18VAC50-22.
How to tell a Kingsport roofer’s claims from their record
Licensing is required in TN. Tennessee requires roofing contractors to be licensed by the Board for Licensing Contractors within the Department of Commerce and Insurance. Since 1 January 2014 roofing subcontractors have required a licence at any contract value, with no monetary threshold below which they may operate unlicensed.
Projects of $25,000 or more require a state Contractor licence with the BC-21 classification, which covers roofing, gutters and vinyl siding. Residential projects between $3,000 and $25,000 require a Home Improvement licence. Applicants must pass both a trade exam and a business and law exam, administered by PSI.
Check here: Tennessee Board for Licensing Contractors. Check the classification, not just the licence. A Home Improvement licence does not authorise a $25,000-plus replacement, which describes many full re-roofs.
Four checks to run before you sign anything, in any state.
- Verify certification at the source. Use the GAF verification tool rather than trusting a badge image on a company website.
- Get the certificate of insurance from the insurer, not the contractor, and confirm general liability and workers compensation are both active on the day work starts.
- Confirm who pulls the permit. If a contractor asks you to pull it as the homeowner, that moves liability onto you. Decline.
- Get warranty terms in writing before any deposit, and check the manufacturer warranty being promised actually requires the certification tier the contractor holds.
What the rest of the Kingsport field looks like
6 certified roofing contractors serve the principal cities of the Kingsport-Bristol, TN-VA statistical area, of which 0 hold the top President’s Club tier. The pool carries 522 customer reviews between them at a mean rating of 4.557. The statistical area had a 2024 population of 313,876, a change of 2.04% against the 2020 census base, per the U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2024 estimates.
How these Kingsport rankings were produced
Every contractor in the Kingsport-Bristol, TN-VA pool was scored out of 100 on four published components: certification tier, a Bayesian adjusted rating, review depth and distance from the metro centre. In this metro that meant scoring 6 certified contractors, of whom 0 hold President’s Club standing and 4 Master Elite, against a metro mean rating of 4.557. The top five were then researched individually against Better Business Bureau records, state licence registers and manufacturer directories. The findings are printed above whether they flatter the contractor or not, and nobody paid to appear.
Set aside in Kingsport. A contractor that would otherwise have scored into the top five was removed for the reason stated. The score is computed from public data, but where the research pass finds evidence undermining an input to that score, the score is set aside.
- Tri Cities Gutter Solutions, which scored 68.3: scored third on 4.9 across 211 reviews, the deepest customer record in the metro, and there is nothing adverse on its file. It is excluded because roof replacement is not an established service line for it. The Better Business Bureau files the company under the industry category Gutters and its profile does not mention roofing at all, and every indexed page on its own site concerns gutters, gutter guards, gutter repair, gutter cleaning or fascia, with no roofing page. Roofing appears only in third-party aggregator listings. It holds entry-tier GAF Certified status, began trading on 1 December 2019 and is owned by Teresa Kingsbury. Attributing roof replacement to it would misdescribe a business that presents itself consistently as a gutter specialist, and this page exists to rank roofers
The full method, the weightings, what the GAF certification tiers actually mean, who is eligible to be ranked and what we do not claim are all set out on our roofer ranking methodology page. Last updated: October 2026. Scoring run: 2026-10-01. Corrections go to the editor and are actioned on verification.
Common questions about roofers in Kingsport
Who is the best roofer in Kingsport, TN?
Affordable Roofing of Gray, TN scores highest in the Kingsport metro on The Roofing Brief Contractor Score, at 72.4 out of 100 as of October 2026. It holds Master Elite certification with a 4.9 rating across 52 reviews. Highest-scoring is not the same as best fit for your specific job, and the four companies behind it score within 24.5 points.
How many certified roofing contractors serve Kingsport?
6 contractors on the GAF certification registry serve the principal cities of the Kingsport-Bristol, TN-VA statistical area as of October 2026, of which 0 hold President’s Club status.
How much damaging hail does Kingsport get?
The Kingsport-Bristol, TN-VA statistical area recorded 42 hail reports of 1 inch or larger and 1 of 2 inches or larger between 2016 and 2025 in the NOAA Storm Events Database. The largest hailstone reported measured 2.0 inches.
Did any contractor pay to appear on this list?
No. The Roofing Brief takes no placement fees, no lead fees and no affiliate commission from any roofing contractor. Ranking comes entirely from the published formula applied to public registry data, followed by an individual research pass on the top five.
What was the worst hailstorm in Kingsport in the last ten years?
The largest hailstone logged by the National Weather Service in the Kingsport-Bristol, TN-VA statistical area between 2016 and 2025 measured 2.0 inches, reported near Goshen on 19 May 2022. That is hen-egg sized. Two inches is the threshold at which insurers expect functional damage and full replacement claims. Across the decade the metro recorded 43 hail reports. The database’s property-damage fields are left blank for most of these reports, so it carries no usable loss total for this metro and we do not quote one.
When is the worst time of year for roof damage in Kingsport?
Severe-weather reports in the Kingsport-Bristol, TN-VA statistical area cluster in July, May, August, on the NOAA record for 2016 to 2025. If the work can wait, booking outside that window usually buys you shorter lead times and more of the contractor’s attention.
Do roofers need a licence in TN?
Tennessee requires roofing contractors to be licensed by the Board for Licensing Contractors within the Department of Commerce and Insurance. Since 1 January 2014 roofing subcontractors have required a licence at any contract value, with no monetary threshold below which they may operate unlicensed. Projects of $25,000 or more require a state Contractor licence with the BC-21 classification, which covers roofing, gutters and vinyl siding. Residential projects between $3,000 and $25,000 require a Home Improvement licence. Applicants must pass both a trade exam and a business and law exam, administered by PSI.
What should I check before hiring a roofer in Kingsport?
Check the classification, not just the licence. A Home Improvement licence does not authorise a $25,000-plus replacement, which describes many full re-roofs.
The same roof, two states, five miles apart?
Bristol is a single built-up area divided between Bristol, Tennessee and Bristol, Virginia. A contractor working here crosses a regulatory boundary several times a week, and so does the standard a homeowner can hold them to. On the Tennessee side, a $20,000 re-roof requires no state licence: the Board for Licensing Contractors threshold is $25,000, and the Home Improvement licence that would otherwise catch work from $3,000 upward applies in nine named counties, none of them in the Tri-Cities. On the Virginia side, the same $20,000 job requires a licence, because Virginia’s threshold is $1,000 with no trade exemption.
Is Kingsport a hard market to find a good roofer in?
The state line runs through the middle of this metro, and the two sides regulate roofers in opposite ways. In Tennessee a residential re-roof needs no state licence at all until the job reaches $25,000, and none of the three Tri-Cities Tennessee counties falls under the separate Home Improvement regime that would cover smaller work. Cross into Bristol, Abingdon or Scott County and Virginia requires a licence from the first dollar above $1,000, graded by class, with a roofing specialty designation and a compensation fund behind it. The same contractor, the same job, five miles apart: regulated from $1,000 on one side, unregulated up to $25,000 on the other.
Is wind or hail the bigger risk to a roof in Kingsport?
Wind, by a wide margin. The Kingsport-Bristol, TN-VA statistical area logged 188 severe thunderstorm and high wind reports against 42 hail reports of an inch or more between 2016 and 2025. Wind damage shows up at the rake, ridge and edge rather than across the field of the roof, so the fastening schedule and edge detail matter more here than the impact rating of the shingle.
Why is Tri Cities Gutter Solutions not on this list?
Scored third on 4.9 across 211 reviews, the deepest customer record in the metro, and there is nothing adverse on its file. It is excluded because roof replacement is not an established service line for it. The Better Business Bureau files the company under the industry category Gutters and its profile does not mention roofing at all, and every indexed page on its own site concerns gutters, gutter guards, gutter repair, gutter cleaning or fascia, with no roofing page. Roofing appears only in third-party aggregator listings. It holds entry-tier GAF Certified status, began trading on 1 December 2019 and is owned by Teresa Kingsbury. Attributing roof replacement to it would misdescribe a business that presents itself consistently as a gutter specialist, and this page exists to rank roofers.
Roofer rankings for other metros
The Roofing Brief scores certified roofing contractors in the 400 largest U.S. metropolitan and micropolitan areas on the same formula.
- Best roofers in Johnson City, TN, about 15 miles from Kingsport
- Best roofers in Asheville, NC, about 66 miles from Kingsport
- Best roofers in Hickory, NC, about 87 miles from Kingsport
- Best roofers in Knoxville, TN, another TN metro on the same formula
- Best roofers in Chattanooga, TN, another TN metro on the same formula
- Best roofers in Roanoke, VA, a metro of comparable size
- Best roofers in Hagerstown, MD, a metro of comparable size
See the full index of all 400 metro roofer rankings, or read how to find and vet a roofing contractor anywhere in the country.
Cite this analysis
The Roofing Brief. “Best Roofers in Kingsport, TN: The Roofing Brief Contractor Score.” Published October 2026. Inputs: GAF certification registry; NOAA Storm Events Database 2016-2025; U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2024 population estimates; Better Business Bureau and independent review-platform records for each ranked contractor.