Service Areas

We build across the Tri-Cities and the counties around them. The Johnson City metro is Carter, Unicoi and Washington counties, home to about 207,000 people in 2020, and the wider Tri-Cities combined area, including Kingsport and Bristol, counted about 585,000. On the Virginia side we work in Abingdon and Bristol.

The valley: Washington, Sullivan, Greene and Hawkins counties

Johnson City, Jonesborough, Gray, Kingsport, Blountville, Piney Flats, Bluff City, Church Hill, Rogersville and Greeneville sit in the Ridge-and-Valley country: long, even ridges with long valleys between them, carved where soft shale and limestone wore away. The farm soils here are clay-rich. The USDA Dunmore series, formed from dolomitic limestone in the East Tennessee valleys, averages 40 to 60 percent clay, and some areas are pitted with limestone sinks. The Groseclose series, on the ridges and side slopes, has a clayey subsoil with slow permeability. On land like that, we look for sinks and drainage paths before choosing a pad and size the slab for the soil.

Permitting changes as you cross county lines. Sullivan County requires a building permit, a septic permit from the local TDEC field office, a driveway permit from the County Highway Department (or TDOT on a state highway) and a TDEC construction stormwater permit when more than an acre is disturbed. Downtown Blountville and Piney Flats Village are historic districts where exterior work needs a Certificate of Appropriateness. In Jonesborough, the H-1 historic district has the same requirement, and grading or clearing needs its own permit.

The mountains: Carter, Unicoi and Johnson counties

East and south of Johnson City, Elizabethton, Hampton, Roan Mountain, Erwin, Unicoi and Mountain City sit in the Blue Ridge. Roan Mountain's community is at about 2,579 feet along the upper Doe River, below a 6,285-foot summit. Mountain City, at 2,418 feet, is the highest incorporated city in Tennessee, and it shares the state's record low of 32 below. Creeks and rivers here can rise violently: on September 27, 2024, Helene's flooding on the Nolichucky River swamped Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin and forced a helicopter rescue from its roof. Carter County asks for a 911 address, septic permit, highway department driveway agreement and a stormwater permit for cut-and-fill or slab work before it issues a building permit, and it doubles the fee if work starts first.

Southwest Virginia: Abingdon and Bristol

Abingdon, the Washington County, Virginia seat, sits at about 2,087 feet between the Middle and North Forks of the Holston River and averages about 12.5 inches of snow. Virginia builds under its own Uniform Statewide Building Code (the 2021 edition took effect January 18, 2024), and septic and private well permits go through the Virginia Department of Health. We handle each side of the state line on its own terms.