Short answer: every contractor on these pages is scored out of 100 on four published components (certification tier 35, adjusted rating 40, review depth 15, metro proximity 10), the weights were fixed before any contractor was scored, nobody pays to appear, and the top five in each metro are then researched by hand against Better Business Bureau records, state licence registers and manufacturer directories. This page sets out the whole method so the metro pages do not have to repeat it.
The Contractor Score
The Roofing Brief Contractor Score is a 0 to 100 composite. The weights below were fixed before any contractor was scored, and they have not been changed since.
| Component | Weight | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| Certification tier | 35 | President’s Club 35, Master Elite 24, base certification 12. |
| Adjusted rating | 40 | Bayesian average B = (50M + nr) / (50 + n), where r is the raw rating, n the review count and M the metro mean. Scaled linearly from 4.0 to 5.0. |
| Review corpus depth | 15 | log10(n+1) divided by log10(max n + 1) across the metro pool. |
| Metro proximity | 10 | Linear from 10 points at 0 miles to 0 at 40 miles from the metro centre. |
Why a Bayesian average rather than the raw star rating: a contractor with one five-star review is not better than one with 4.8 across 600. The formula pulls thin records toward the metro mean until there is enough evidence to move them, so depth of record earns its weight rather than being asserted.
Scores are shown to one decimal place. The ranking uses the unrounded total, so two contractors displayed with the same score are ordered by the figure before rounding.
What the GAF certification tiers actually mean
GAF states that Master Elite certification is held by roughly 2 per cent of roofing contractors in North America. It requires licensing where the state demands it, adequate insurance and a documented track record, and it permits the contractor to offer GAF’s enhanced warranties including the Golden Pledge Limited Warranty. President’s Club is a further selection made from within the Master Elite population on performance, reliability and service, and it is re-earned rather than held permanently, so it reflects recent performance rather than a one-off qualification. Base certification confirms the contractor is on the register and in good standing, nothing more.
Who is eligible to be ranked
A contractor is eligible only if it appears on the GAF certification registry for a principal city of the Census-defined statistical area, and its own business address sits within 40 miles of the metro centre. That distance is computed geodesically from US Census gazetteer coordinates rather than taken from the registry, because the registry reports distance from whichever city was searched: searching a satellite city would otherwise admit contractors from an entirely different metropolitan area.
Contractors are de-duplicated by registry ID, and by company name where one business holds two registry entries, which happens often enough to matter: a company with a second office in a nearby town can appear twice and would otherwise occupy two places in a top five. A contractor also needs at least five reviews on the registry to be ranked at all, because these pages rank on verifiable public evidence and a listing carrying one review or none has no customer record to verify.
The top five are then researched individually, and their records corroborated against sources outside the registry: Better Business Bureau profiles, state licence registers where the state keeps one, manufacturer directories, chambers of commerce and local trade associations. Where that research finds something that undermines an input to the score, the contractor is set aside and the reason is published on the metro page as a documented exclusion.
What we do not claim
The pool is one manufacturer’s registry, because GAF’s is the only roofing certification list that can be queried in bulk. A roofer certified solely by Owens Corning, CertainTeed or IKO will not appear in the scoring pool, though the research pass records those certifications where a ranked company holds them, and in a few metros where the certified pool is genuinely thin we name credentialed non-GAF firms separately so the page does not misrepresent the market.
Registry ratings are published by the manufacturer and inherit its bias, which is why every rating here is corroborated against an independent source. Certification is a floor, not a guarantee: it evidences training, insurance and standing with a manufacturer, not the outcome of your job.
One number cannot tell you who to hire. The score ranks evidence, not suitability: proximity, roof type, scheduling and who actually turns up all matter and none of them is in the formula. Get three written quotes regardless.
Telephone numbers on these pages
Where we give the telephone number carried on a contractor’s registry listing, we label it as exactly that. Research across these metros established that registry numbers are frequently directory call-tracking lines rather than the contractor’s own: in one metro every one of seven companies published a different number from the one on its registry entry, and three unrelated firms held consecutive numbers in a single block. Take the number from the company’s own website and compare the two.
Corrections
These pages describe real businesses using public records. If you are a contractor named here and something is inaccurate or out of date, contact the editor and it will be corrected on verification. Placement cannot be bought, and it cannot be bought off. Where we have made an error we correct it on the page rather than quietly removing it.