Metal Roofing in Bristol, Tennessee

Metal is not new around here. Drive any road out of Bristol toward Blountville or Bluff City and you will pass barns that have worn the same panel roof for fifty or sixty years. What has changed is that the same material got good enough — and good-looking enough — to go on the house instead of just the outbuilding.

Why metal suits a Bristol roof specifically

Two local things push people toward metal here. The first is winter wind. Between November and March this end of the region gets mountain-wave wind events along the western foothills, and Holston Mountain is one of the named sites that reports advisory-level gusts in them. Wind of that kind works on edges — fastener heads, shingle tabs, a lifted rake. A standing-seam roof gives it nothing: no exposed fasteners and a continuous locked seam.

The second is freeze and thaw. Our winters do not sit at one temperature; they swing over the freezing point again and again, so meltwater runs, refreezes and expands in every crack it has found. That cycle is what quietly destroys an asphalt roof from the surface down. Metal has no granules to lose and sheds snow before it has time to melt and refreeze at the eave.

Standing seam or exposed fastener?

Standing seam hides its fasteners under a raised, locked seam. It costs more, it looks far better on a house, and it is the one we would put on a home near Steele Creek or up in Holston View where the roof is the first thing anybody sees. Exposed-fastener panel screws through the face of the sheet. It is markedly cheaper and completely appropriate on a shop, a barn, a garage or a pole building — the sort of thing there is a lot of out toward the Speedway. The trade-off is real: those gaskets are a wear item and want checking every so often. Our comparison of the two goes through it properly.

What we will tell you honestly

Metal costs more up front than shingle. If you are selling the house in three years, it may not pay you back. If you intend to be in it in twenty, it very likely will, and you will not be buying another roof. We would rather say that plainly than talk you into the expensive option. See what metal actually costs in Tennessee and then let us measure yours.

Two myths worth killing while we are here. It is not loud — over solid decking and underlayment, which is how we install it, a metal roof in rain sounds like any other roof. And it does not attract lightning; it is no more likely to be struck than anything else, and being non-combustible it handles a strike better than shingle does.

The rest of what we do in Bristol

Same work, next town over

• Metal Roofing in Kingsport, TN — a lot of steep 1920s Kingsport roofs suit standing seam
• Metal Roofing in Johnson City, TN — metal over in Washington County, including the Tree Streets

Back to everything we do in Bristol, TN, or read the general metal roofing page.