Comparing Roofing Bids in Wilson 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 severe storm in Wilson County can leave roofs with the full menu of problems: hail bruising, wind-lifted shingles, damaged flashing, and the slow leaks that follow. Getting more than one written bid is one way to understand what a repair may cost.

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 Wilson 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

Wind-lifted and creased shingles — broken seal strips let later storms drive rain under the roof surface.
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.
Hail bruising and granule loss — impact marks that shorten shingle life even when no leak appears immediately.
Impact damage that hides from the ground — hail strikes are hard to see without getting on the roof, which is why documentation matters.

What to expect locally

After a storm in Wilson 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

Storm damage in Middle Tennessee can arrive in clusters: a single hail event can affect many roofs, gutters, and siding elevations in an area at once. Comparing more than one written bid for the same scope is one way homeowners check pricing when demand spikes.

Wilson County notes

Reading Wilson County's NOAA file

The Wilson County file is large, and thunderstorm wind fills most of it. NOAA logs 252 thunderstorm wind entries across 78 separate dates, the first on April 6, 2016 and the latest on June 9, 2026. Estimates stand behind the gust in 247 entries and instruments behind 5; 34 entries sit between 35 and 48 knots and 218 reach 50 or more. July is the busiest month (65 entries on 17 days), with June next (50 on 16), then May (30 on 11), April (28 on 9), March (20 on 6) and December (20 on just 3). One year towers over the rest: 2016 has 86 entries, against 34 in 2017 and 27 in 2018, and the recent tally is 5 in 2021, 4 in 2025 and 16 in 2026 so far.

Much of that total traces to particular dates. July 8, 2016 supplies 19 entries between 7:58 and 8:29 p.m. CST and June 15, 2016 supplies 17 between 3:14 and 3:45 p.m. CST; three more dates carry 11 each: December 17, 2016 (11:14 to 11:21 p.m. CST), March 30, 2017 (6:41 to 7:00 p.m. CST) and November 18, 2017 (4:54 to 5:27 p.m. CST). The December 17 entry labeled Laguardo is a 70-knot estimate; NOAA's narrative describes a microburst a quarter mile wide with estimated winds as high as 80 mph, plus a house on Dana Drive that "lost most of its west facing shingles", which were blown up to 150 yards. Three entries are 74 knots, every one an estimate: Cherry Vly at 7:41 a.m. CST on March 1, 2017, where a narrative about a downburst south of Watertown mentions a house losing shingles on File Road, and Taylorsville (5:06 p.m.) and Tuckers Xrds (5:20 p.m.) on May 8, 2024. The top instrument reading is 61 knots at Lebanon, 4:03 p.m. CST on May 3, 2020, and a spotter and the airport weather station at Lebanon on July 8, 2016 read 55 and 53 knots.

Roofs show up in plenty of narratives. At 3:30 and 3:31 p.m. CST on June 15, 2016, NOAA has "A large part of the roof was blown off Sam Houston Elementary School. The roof was under construction." and "The roof was blown off the new city animal control building on Sparta Pike". At 4:18 p.m. CST on April 5, 2025 a row says winds "blew shingles off of homes south of Gallatin", and the Lebanon entry of 3:50 p.m. CST on April 4, 2026 says winds caused "shingles to be blown off a house as well as caused fencing damage on Hunters Village Drive in Lebanon".

Hail comes to 40 entries on 21 days, May 10, 2016 to May 8, 2025, and 31 (on 15 days) are an inch or larger. June 17, 2022 is the standout. At 9:42 a.m. CST NOAA filed a 3.00-inch entry under Gladeville, in which a National Weather Service employee reports hail "ranging from ping pong up to tea cup size" with an average stone of lime to tennis ball size. Two minutes before that, at 9:40 a.m., a 2.75-inch entry cites an mPing report of baseball-size hail five miles east of Rural Hill, and at 9:38 a.m. a 1.75-inch Suggs Creek entry appears; four hail entries fall on that date. May 10, 2016 has five, including 1.75-inch golf-ball-size entries at Mt Juliet (10:50 and 10:55 p.m. CST) and Silver Spgs (11:00 p.m. CST). Twelve entries are 1.50 inches or more, on six dates. The months run from January through July: May has 9 entries on 3 days, June 8 on 4, and March and April 7 each on 4. Neither 2019 nor 2026 has a hail entry.

Zone-filed wind adds 2 High Wind entries (52 and 54 knots) and 9 Strong Wind entries on 8 days, 39 to 48 knots.

Thirteen tornado entries fall on 10 days. On March 1, 2017 two arrive near Watertown: a 3.32-mile EF0 at 7:37 a.m. CST and a 6.4-mile EF1 at 7:40 a.m., which NOAA's narrative calls a high end EF-1; one home on Sparta Pike took considerable roof damage and a mobile home on Linwood Road lost most of its metal roof. The November 18, 2017 EF1 ran 6.33 miles toward Gladeville, where a few homes had roof damage on Cobblestone Way and Stonefield Drive and a church steeple on McCreary Road collapsed into the sanctuary. On April 25, 2020 a 2.25-mile EF1 at Commerce (3:45 p.m. CST) damaged the roofs of two houses.

An entry stamped 12:54 a.m. CST on March 3, 2020 is an EF3 listed at 26.65 miles under Mt Juliet. NOAA's narrative calls it "An historic, long-track, strong EF-3 tornado" with a continuous 60.13 miles on the ground from Davidson County into Smith County, and says it caused 5 deaths and 220 injuries. For Wilson County the narrative reports dozens of homes with up to EF-2 damage in the Chandler Road and Triple Crown Parkway neighborhoods of Mount Juliet, says it "leveled numerous homes in the Catalpa Drive and Clearview Drive neighborhoods", and says West Wilson Middle School and Stoner Creek Elementary School were severely damaged.

The remaining entries: an EF0 of 0.97 miles on February 6, 2019; a 3.2-mile EF0 on March 25, 2021 with minor roof damage to a few outbuildings; a 2.51-mile EF0 in Mt Juliet on October 3, 2021; three December 11, 2021 entries between 3:34 and 3:50 a.m. CST (an EF1 of 4.27 miles and EF0s of 0.66 and 0.69 miles); a brief EF0 on May 6, 2024 whose narrative says the only known damage was to trees; and an 11.51-mile EF1 at 8:36 a.m. CST on April 3, 2025, where some homes had minor roof damage.

On timekeeping: NOAA's format guide gives times as "usually in LST" (local standard time), and every Wilson County entry is stamped CST, so a daylight-time wall clock ran an hour past the stamp. Three May 10, 2016 entries, Silver Spgs at 11:00 p.m., Greenwood at 11:45 p.m. and Bairds Mills at 11:46 p.m., were already May 11 on the wall. The 2026 entries come from NOAA's September 18, 2026 file, which is refreshed monthly. This is weather across the county and says nothing about one property or what comes next.

Wilson County housing

Table DP04 of the Census Bureau's 2020 to 2024 American Community Survey (five-year estimates) counts 63,031 housing units in Wilson County: 59,139 occupied, 3,892 vacant (6.2 percent). Owner households number 45,547 (77.0 percent of occupied units), and renter households 13,592 (23.0 percent). Counting by structure type, there are 47,779 detached houses (75.8 percent), 3,433 attached houses, 728 units in buildings of 3 or 4, 2,882 in buildings of 20 or more and 3,254 mobile homes (5.2 percent).

For year built, table B25035 shows a median of 2000. The 2010s band is the largest at 13,929 units (22.1 percent), followed by the 2000s at 12,933 and the 1990s at 8,880; 4,324 units are from 2020 or later. Everything from before 1980 comes to 14,952 units (23.7 percent), against 31,186 (49.5 percent) from 2000 onward. Tables like these cannot date one roof; your own records can.

County, Mt. Juliet and Lebanon offices

Wilson County Building Codes is at 233 East Gay Street in Lebanon, telephone 615-444-3025 (option 1). Its Building Codes Division page names the 2021 International Residential Code among adopted codes and says "Permit applications will not be processed after 3:30 pm each day". It states that "The property owner of record or a state-licensed contractor are the only individuals that can apply for building permits in Wilson County". For residential remodels it says it permits "when there are major load changes", major use changes and major dwelling-type changes; roofing is not named on the page, so put the re-roof question to the office. The remodel checklist asks for the contractor's name, a copy of the contractor's Tennessee license, and a worker's compensation certificate of liability or exemption, or an affidavit if the owner serves as his or her own contractor.

The City of Mt. Juliet Building and Codes Department, 115 Clemmons Rd. (615-773-6225), lists Monday-to-Friday hours of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and the 2018 International Residential Code among its adopted codes. Its permits section applies to an owner or agent who intends to "construct, enlarge, alter, repair, move, demolish, or change the occupancy of a building or structure", and the list of exceptions (fences, sidewalks, small pools, playground equipment, awnings, retaining walls) leaves roofing out. Ask the department whether a roof job counts.

The City of Lebanon's Building Inspection and Permitting page lists most of its staff on 615-444-3647 with extensions; the city's address on that page is 200 North Castle Heights Avenue. Its Guidelines page lists the 2018 International Residential Code among current adopted codes. The Lebanon pages read here do not name roofing either.

For the state license, 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 Wilson 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

- Whatever written estimate your insurer sent, to hand to each bidder.

- Which office covers your address: Wilson County, Mt. Juliet, Lebanon or Watertown.

- A question for every bidder: who applies for the permit, and who supplies the license held by the contractor, plus the workers compensation papers the county checklist names?

- A count of the roof layers on the house today, and what the contract says about the deck.

- Each bidder's Tennessee license number, checked in Verify a License.

How Otter Quotes works here

Here is how Otter Quotes works for a Wilson County project. You submit your project details once.

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

You can then compare any written bids you receive side by side, on scope, price, and terms. The platform is informational, and the decision stays entirely yours.

Frequently asked questions

Should I repair or replace after partial-slope damage?

Shingle availability and the age of the roof both come into it; your insurer can tell you how your policy addresses matching. Written bids that price both paths let you compare the two side by side.

Who decides whether my policy applies to roof damage in Wilson 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.

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.