Comparing Roofing Bids in Montgomery County, Tennessee

We create a scope of work and send it to local contractors.

You compare any written bids you receive for your roofing project, and the decision stays yours.

A roof in Montgomery County can take hail strikes and wind uplift during a storm, and when it fails, the damage rarely stays confined to the shingles.

The Middle Tennessee climate and your roofing

NWS Nashville's tornado climatology of Middle Tennessee, which covers 1830 to 2003, defines the region as the thirty-nine counties of its county warning area plus three Tennessee counties covered by the Huntsville, Alabama office, and its county table includes Montgomery County. NWS Nashville's tornado statistics page lists an average of 18 tornadoes per year in Middle Tennessee for 1995 to 2025, against 31 per year statewide. A second NWS Nashville study covers heavy precipitation in Middle Tennessee.

Roofing issues to look for after a storm

Decking and underlayment issues — discovered only at tear-off, and can be a source of change orders worth understanding in advance.
Ventilation and code items — older roofs may need code-related upgrades; ask your contractor and your building department how local code items are handled.
Slow leaks after a storm — minor damage can go unnoticed until water stains show indoors.
Flashing and penetration damage — check chimneys, vents, and valleys, where post-storm leaks can start.
Wind-lifted and creased shingles — broken seal strips let later storms drive rain under the roof surface.

What to expect locally

After a storm in Montgomery County, the useful work is slow: getting damage documented, raising questions with your insurer, and having the repair scoped carefully. Many homeowners find it helps to slow the process down at the start — documenting damage before tarps and repairs change the evidence, reading their policy before the first phone call, and getting more than one written bid before signing anything.

Local demand can also move in waves. After a widely publicized hail event, contractors across a region may get busy at once. If you receive more than one written bid, comparing them gives you a way to check pricing when demand spikes, and can surface scope differences — what one bidder saw that another missed — before the work starts rather than after.

Season and timing

Timing is worth planning. The weeks after a storm can be busy for adjusters and contractors, and winter weather can limit exterior work. Document the damage first, then take the time you need to compare any written bids you receive.

Montgomery County notes

Clarksville and the rest of Montgomery County in NOAA's file

Most of this county's storm record is thunderstorm wind, and the tornado list is short but severe. The wind count is 97 entries over 58 days, February 2, 2016 to April 28, 2026. Gust figures are estimates in 92 entries and instrument readings in 5. Nine entries fall short of 50 knots (43 to 48), and the other 88 meet or exceed it. June is first with 18 entries over 7 days and July second with 14 over 11; March, April and May hold 13 apiece, spread over 4, 6 and 10 days. 2016 is the busiest year at 19 entries, 2017 and 2019 hold 12 apiece, and the latest years are quieter: 5 in 2024, 4 in 2025 and 3 in 2026 so far.

Some days pile up. Between 6:28 and 6:41 a.m. CST on March 1, 2017, nine entries were logged, topped by a 65-knot estimate at Bel Air Estates, with 56 knots at Hilltop, Round Pond and St Bethlehem. NOAA's narrative there describes an 8-mile swath of damage on Clarksville's north side, 26 reports of downed trees and power lines to the county emergency operations center, and one tree that fell on a house on Parker Drive. On June 22, 2019 seven entries run from 2:28 to 2:54 p.m. CST, nearly all at 50 knots, and on April 8, 2020 there are four.

October 26, 2019 holds the file's strongest estimate, 78 knots, filed under Shiloh at 1:45 p.m. CST. The narrative speaks of a downburst swath 5 to 10 miles wide over the western county including northwest Clarksville, winds estimated up to 90 mph, and two houses and five mobile homes reported destroyed, mainly by falling trees. It adds that "A nursing home in Palmyra also suffered roof damage" and that power outages lasted up to 2 weeks; the narrative says "Damage estimates from the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency across Montgomery County reached $4.09 million". For instruments, the top reading is 55 knots (63 mph) at the Clarksville Outlaw Field weather station on March 28, 2020.

Two roof stories come from smaller entries. A 61-knot entry at 9:00 p.m. CST on February 24, 2018 reports that "A small section of the Dunn Center arena at Austin Peay State University was blown off, leaving a small hole in the roof", and that a basketball game was delayed. The 61-knot entry of March 15, 2026 reads "A tornadic thunderstorm downed trees and caused roof damage on Tiny Town Road and Allen Road in Clarksville".

Turning to hail: 16 entries on 11 days from May 10, 2016 to March 30, 2025, of which twelve (on 7 days) are an inch or larger. The afternoon of May 8, 2024 accounts for the biggest, a 3.00-inch entry at 3:05 p.m. CST in which a spotter reported estimated three-inch hail in Clarksville. At 3:17 p.m. a 2.00-inch entry places hail south-southwest of the city, and two 1.75-inch entries describe golf ball-size stones. Those four make up 4 of the 6 hail entries NOAA lists for 2024. A further 1.75-inch entry dates from May 10, 2016 at 7:15 p.m. CST, with golf-ball-size hail in north Clarksville near the Kentucky border. May is the heaviest hail month, with 9 entries on 5 days. Hail is absent from 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2026.

Gusts not tied to a thunderstorm are filed by forecast zone: 3 High Wind entries (51, 53 and 69 knots, the 69 on March 3, 2023) and 6 Strong Wind entries on 5 days, running 40 to 48 knots.

Tornadoes: eight entries on five days. February 24, 2018 delivered two, an EF1 of 5.31 miles beginning at Dotsonville at 8:50 p.m. CST, where a few homes had minor roof damage, and an EF2 of 4.07 miles beginning at St Bethlehem at 9:03 p.m. CST, winds estimated at 125 mph. The EF2 narrative states that the roof was blown off one home, that four duplexes on Holland Drive lost their roofs, and that dozens of homes in the Farmington subdivision had roof and exterior damage; county emergency management estimated 7 million dollars in damage. June 19, 2019 brought a 1.25-mile EF0 near McAllisters Crossroads, with minor roof damage to some homes.

The EF3 entry of December 9, 2023 is the heaviest on the list: 11.3 miles from Woodlawn at 1:41 p.m. CST, starting at Fort Campbell, maximum winds given as 150 mph. That text says "A total of nearly 1,000 homes were impacted by the tornado, including 114 homes destroyed and 268 homes with major damage", that four people died and 62 were injured, that two dozen new two-story brick apartment homes were severely damaged with roofs missing on at least a dozen of them, and that dozens more houses along and near Needmore Road and Tiny Town Road took roof damage the narrative calls significant. The same afternoon's other entry is a 1.61-mile EF0 at Oakwood (1:29 p.m. CST), the tail end of a track that began in the next county; NOAA's narrative says that in far western Montgomery County "only a few trees and large branches were broken". A further pair of EF0 entries, of 3.2 and 9.34 miles, are dated May 20, 2025. The latest, March 15, 2026, is a 4.82-mile EF0 whose narrative reports shingles off of roofs in neighborhoods from Fort Campbell into Clarksville.

On timekeeping: NOAA's format guide gives times as "usually in LST" (local standard time), and each Montgomery County entry is stamped CST, so a daylight-time wall clock ran an hour past the stamp. One Clarksville wind entry, 11:09 p.m. CST on April 2, 2025, was therefore already April 3 on the wall. The 2026 entries come from NOAA's September 18, 2026 file, which is refreshed monthly. None of this describes one particular address or predicts later weather.

Montgomery County housing

Table DP04 of the 2020 to 2024 American Community Survey, five-year estimates from the Census Bureau, counts 93,445 units in Montgomery County. 87,759 are occupied and 5,686 are vacant (6.1 percent). Homeowners hold 54,302 of the occupied units (61.9 percent), and renters hold 33,457 (38.1 percent). Detached houses come to 66,467 (71.1 percent of units), units in buildings of 3 or 4 to 6,028 (6.5 percent), units in buildings of 20 or more to 3,453 and mobile homes to 3,298 (3.5 percent).

Table B25035 gives 1998 as the median year built. The 2010s are the largest band (19,978 units, or 21.4 percent), ahead of the 18,696 from the 2000s or the 16,386 from the 1990s, and 5,047 units are from 2020 or later. Units from before 1980 total 23,253 (24.9 percent) while units from 2000 onward total 43,721 (46.8 percent). A roof's age is not recorded in either table.

County and city codes offices

Montgomery County Building and Codes works from 350 Pageant Lane, Suite 309 in Clarksville, telephone 931-648-5718, Monday to Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. To the question "When do I need a building permit?", its Frequently Asked Questions page answers "Whenever a person wishes to construct, alter, repair, enlarge, move, renovate, demolish, or permanently place any building, or structure". The permit-types list names renovations and fire restoration under building permits but not roofing, so put the re-roof question to the office. Adopted codes, per the department's page, include the 2018 International Residential Code, under Resolution 20-10-6 effective January 1, 2021. The FAQ also says "A homeowner may obtain his or her own building or plumbing permits", and for property inside the city limits it gives 931-645-7426 for City Building and Codes. The City of Clarksville's permit pages were not read here.

On choosing a contractor, the FAQ asks "Are they licensed?", says "Tennessee law requires that a general contractor or home improvement contractor be licensed", and advises "Make sure the building permit is in hand before the work begins".

State licensing is a separate matter. Tennessee Board for Licensing Contractors pages read in October 2026 say "A Home Improvement license is required for residential remodeling projects from $3,000 to $24,999; however, this only applies to the counties adopting the law", and Montgomery is not among the nine counties named. The contractor page says a contractor's license is required "for projects of $25,000 or more when acting as a prime contractor", and that subcontractors contracting directly with a contractor must be licensed for "roofing work when that portion of the project is $25,000 or more". A Verify a License search is linked from the pages; it was not used here, so run the lookup yourself.

Before bids arrive

- A written insurer estimate, if you have one, in a form each bidder can read.

- Whether you fall under the county department or the City of Clarksville, because the FAQ gives different numbers for each.

- For each bidder: who pulls the permit, and is it in hand when work starts?

- How many roof layers the house has today, plus what the contract says about the deck.

- The Tennessee license number of each bidder, run through Verify a License.

How Otter Quotes works here

The process has four steps. You submit your Montgomery County project.

We create a scope of work and send it to local contractors.

You compare any written bids you receive. You choose a contractor, or none of them, and that choice remains entirely your call. Submitting a project does not commit you to hiring anyone.

Frequently asked questions

Who decides whether my policy applies to roof damage in Montgomery County?

Your insurer decides coverage under the terms of your policy. Read your policy, ask your adjuster what is included, and document the damage with dated photos. Our guide on filing a property damage claim walks through the process step by step.

Is one roofing bid enough?

Comparing bids can surface scope differences and give you a way to check pricing, particularly during post-storm demand spikes.

Sources

Homeowner guides

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Otter Quotes is an independent, informational platform that connects homeowners with contractors for property damage repair and exterior improvement projects. Otter Quotes does not independently verify, endorse, or warrant the quality of any contractor's work, and does not guarantee the availability of any particular contractor. Insurance coverage decisions are made solely by your insurer under the terms of your policy. Page generated 2026-10-13.