South Carolina Roofing

South Carolina Roofing Contractor Exam: Complete 2026 Study Guide

The South Carolina Roofing contractor exam is administered by PSI and covers the technical work of roofing: safety, decks and substrates, steep-slope coverings, metal panels, metal flashing, repairs and reroofing, elastomeric membranes, and built-up bituminous systems.

This guide explains what the exam measures, how the content is weighted, what the questions look like, and how to prepare efficiently.

Exam Overview: Format, Time, and Passing Score

Here are the confirmed details for the Roofing examination:

On exam day

• You must bring one valid, unexpired, signature-bearing photo ID (such as a state driver's license, state ID card, US passport, US military ID, US alien registration card, or Canadian government ID) matching the name you registered under.
• You should arrive at least 30 minutes before your appointment.
• The examinations are open book: candidates may bring the listed reference books, which must not be written in or contain additional loose or attached papers, and proctors inspect all books before and after the examination.
• Highlighting and underlining are allowed and only permanent tabs may be used, but books must otherwise be unmarked (not written in).
• You may bring a silent, battery-operated, non-programmable calculator without paper tape printing or an alphabetic keyboard.
• Only approved items may be taken into the examination room, and personal items such as electronic devices, writing devices, reading material, bags, food and drinks must be left in secure storage.

References you may bring

• Roofing Construction and Estimating (1995 (any printing))
• International Building Code with SC modifications or the South Carolina Building Code (2021 International Building Code; or the 2018 South Carolina Building Code)
• NRCA Roofing Manual: Steep Slope Roof Systems (2025)
• NRCA Roofing Manual: Metal Panel and SPF Roof Systems (2024)
• NRCA Roofing Manual: Membrane Roofing Systems (2023)
• NRCA Roofing Manual: Architectural Metal Flashing, Condensation Control and Reroofings (2022)
• Code of Federal Regulations - 29 CFR Part 1926 (OSHA) (with latest available amendments)
• Code of Federal Regulations - 29 CFR Part 1926 Selections by PSI (with latest available amendments)

Scheduling, changes and retakes

• You may register and schedule online at https://test-takers.psiexams.com/sccon, available 24 hours a day, or by telephone with a PSI registrar at (855) 340-3701.
• Minimum qualifications must be met before registering, and the Registration Confirmation Notice issued after PSI approval is valid for 1 year or until an examination classification has been failed twice within the referenced time frame.
• You may cancel and reschedule without forfeiting your fee if your cancellation notice is received 2 days before the scheduled examination date, and voice mail or email is not an acceptable cancellation.
• If you fail to cancel in time, do not appear, arrive after the examination start time, or lack proper ID, your registration is invalid and you forfeit your examination fee.
• Your score is given immediately after the examination on screen and on a printed official report, with a diagnostic report of strengths and weaknesses if you do not pass.
• Except for Burglar and Fire Alarm, an examination may be taken only 2 times in a 12-month period and thereafter only once in six months, and a candidate who passes an exam may not take it again.
• After passing the required examinations, you submit the commercial license application with an experience affidavit documenting the required experience.

Source: Commercial Contractor Candidate Information Bulletin, Updated 8/27/2026. Check the bulletin before test day: fees and rules can change.

Exam Topics and Weights

The official content outline divides the exam into eight topics. Use the item counts below to set your study hours: the steep-slope section alone carries roughly a third of the scored items.

Roofing – Steep — 22 items (34%)
The largest topic by a wide margin. Verified questions here ask for material standards by covering type (asphalt shingles, clay and concrete tile, slate, wood shakes and shingles, metal shingles), wind-resistance classifications tied to basic wind speed, fire classifications for roof assemblies, minimum metal thicknesses, labeling requirements for fire-retardant-treated wood shakes, underlayment standards and their ASTM designations, and simple square-count estimating. Expect to move between the code tables and the NRCA steep-slope manual constantly.

Roofing – Substrate — 8 items (12%)
Deck materials and their preparation. Questions cover minimum plywood thickness recommendations by rafter spacing, the minimum nominal thickness at which wood boards are considered adequate to support roof loads, spaced-sheathing requirements for wood shakes, what NRCA recommends when faced and sealed wood sheathing is found during a replacement, thermal resistance assigned to ventilated airspaces, and waste-factor material counts.

Roofing – Metal Flashing — 8 items (12%)
Flashing metals, fabrication, and details. Verified items address valley flashing extension from the centerline and splash diverter rib heights (which differ between tile and metal shingle systems), drip edge and underlayment sequencing at eaves versus rakes, how far a coping cap or edge metal should extend below the uppermost edge of the wall material, sheet membrane liners on parapet walls before metal caps, oil canning and tension precision leveling, and drip edge linear-foot takeoffs.

Safety — 5 items (8%)
Fall protection options for low-slope roofing work, warning line setback distances, guardrail top-rail strength, portable ladder extension above an upper landing, and fall clearance arithmetic for a personal fall arrest system.

Roofing – Metal Panel — 6 items (9%)
Architectural versus structural panel classification and minimum slopes, the reduced valley slope that results from a given panel slope, standing seam female leg heights, maximum coil stock widths by metal, ventilation airspace behind uncoated zinc cladding, and oil canning control.

Roofing – Elastomeric — 6 items (9%)
Single-ply membrane types and thicknesses, EPDM classification under ASTM D4637, sheet orientation for mechanically attached membranes over steel deck, minimum clearances between penetrations and curbs or walls, ASCE 7-16 wind zone designations, and SPF termination heights at parapets and penetrations.

Roofing – Built-up Bituminous — 6 items (9%)
Asphalt types under ASTM D312 and the slope that governs their selection, maximum kettle and tanker temperatures, ballast application rates for loose-laid single-ply systems, drain sump sizing relative to drain bowl diameter, cold-applied four-ply component selection on nonnailable decks, and coating coverage calculations.

Roofing Repairs — 4 items (6%)
Reroofing decisions and diagnosis: verifying roof structure capacity before a re-cover, the service-life test for reusing existing counterflashings, why interior staining may not align with the point of water entry, and tear-off weight and disposal estimating.

Sample Questions

These are sample practice questions. Answers are not shown here — work them with your references open. For more practice, try the free practice exam, which gives you 10 questions.

1. Roofing – Steep

Roofing Squares A hip roof has a total area of 2,400 sq ft. How many squares of shingles will be needed?

A. 24
B. 26
C. 20
D. 30

Tests the basic estimating conversion between square feet and roofing squares.

2. Roofing – Substrate

You are a residential roofer installing wood shakes using spaced sheathing at 10 inches on center. The sheathing boards are nominal 1-inch by 4-inch lumber. What additional deck preparation is required?

A. Metal strapping fastened perpendicular to the sheathing boards
B. Plywood panels installed over the spaced sheathing boards
C. Additional 1-inch by 4-inch boards installed between the sheathing boards
D. A layer of self-adhering membrane over all sheathing board joints

Tests the code requirement for spaced sheathing under wood shakes at a specified on-center spacing.

3. Roofing – Metal Flashing

Fascia Board Length A house has 150 linear feet of eaves and 90 linear feet of gable rakes. Fascia board is sold in 16-foot lengths. How many boards are needed?

A. 14
B. 15
C. 16
D. 17

Tests linear-foot takeoff and conversion to stock lengths.

4. Roofing – Metal Panel

When structural metal panels are used in architectural applications over continuous or closely spaced substrates, what is the primary reason designers choose structural panels for this purpose?

A. Increased wind-uplift resistance
B. Reduced material cost per panel
C. Simplified clip attachment methods
D. Elimination of underlayment needs

Tests the distinction between architectural and structural metal panel roof systems and the design reasoning behind panel selection.

What Types of Questions to Expect

Three patterns run through the practice questions.

Lookup questions. These give you a condition — a wind speed, a rafter spacing, a deck type, a covering material — and ask for the value the code or manual assigns to it. Minimum metal thickness for zinc, required ASTM standard for clay tile versus slate, required grade for wood shakes of naturally durable wood, required Class rating for a fire-test exposure level. The answer exists in a table or a numbered section. Your job is finding it quickly.

Applied judgment questions. These describe a jobsite condition and ask what is required or recommended. A 3 in 12 roof with unprotected edges 12 feet above grade and the acceptable fall protection options. Faced and sealed wood sheathing found during a replacement. Existing counterflashings on a re-cover. Interior staining that does not line up with any rooftop defect. The distractors in the practice questions are usually plausible-sounding practices that the reference does not actually endorse.

Calculations. Squares, waste factors, linear feet divided by stock lengths, total design loads from summed psf values, tear-off tonnage, coating gallons, fall clearance totals. The arithmetic is straightforward; the errors come from forgetting to round up to whole units, or from applying a waste factor to the rounded piece count instead of to the length before dividing.

Distinctions between similar rules are a recurring trap. Valley flashing extension and diverter rib height are not the same for clay tile as for metal shingles. Underlayment goes over the drip edge at eaves and under it at rakes. Minimum slope differs between architectural and structural metal panel systems. Study these in pairs rather than in isolation.

Required Study Materials

The Roofing examination is open book. These are the references listed for the Roofing examination, plus the supplies used to prepare with them.

Required references:

• Roofing Construction and Estimating — the estimating math: roof-slope factors, net roof area, shingle quantities, surfacing rates.
• South Carolina Building Code 2021 — roof covering requirements, material standards, reroofing provisions, load tables.
• NRCA Roofing Manual: Steep Slope Roof Systems — decks, underlayments, asphalt shingles, tile, slate, wood, metal shingles, reroofing.
• NRCA Roofing Manual: Metal Panel and SPF Roof Systems — panel profiles, seams, slopes, coil stock, structural substrates, SPF.
• NRCA Roofing Manual: Membrane Roofing Systems — EPDM and thermoplastic membranes, built-up systems, insulation, construction details.
• NRCA Roofing Manual: Metal Flashing & Reroofing 2022 — flashing metals, dissimilar metals, expansion, coatings, copings, condensation control.
• OSHA 29 CFR 1926 — fall protection, guardrails, warning lines, ladders, scaffolds, PPE, fire prevention.

Preparation supplies:

• Sharpie Highlighters — for marking the tables and sections you return to most.
• Redi-Tag Permanent Colored Tabs — for indexing chapters and tables by topic.
• Non Programmable Calculator — for the estimating and load items.

Register through PSI, review the official bulletin, and confirm licensing requirements with the South Carolina Contractor's Licensing Board.

Study Tips for the SC Roofing Exam

Weight your hours to the outline. Steep-slope roofing is the single heaviest topic, followed by substrate and metal flashing. If your study time is limited, those three deserve the majority of it. Safety and repairs are smaller topics.

Build an index, not a memory. Open book does not mean easy. It means the exam assumes you can find things. For each topic, write down where the governing tables live: wind classification by speed, material standards by covering, metal thickness by type, minimum slopes by system. Tab those pages. A candidate who can turn to the right table in fifteen seconds has a large advantage over one who reads chapter headings.

Practice with the books closed first, then open. Answer from memory, note what you could not recall, and only then look it up. That identifies which facts you actually know and which ones need a tab.

Rehearse your pace. The allotted time works out to about 2 minutes 46 seconds per question. Some lookup questions take far less; a multi-step calculation or an unfamiliar detail takes more. Answer what you know cold quickly so the harder items get the time they need. Do not spend four minutes hunting for one answer early in the exam.

Work the calculations by hand. Squares, waste, takeoffs, loads, and coverage rates all reward a written setup. Write the formula, substitute the numbers, then round. Rounding at the wrong step is an easy way to miss an estimating item.

Study the near-misses. When two systems have similar but different requirements, put them side by side on one page. Valley flashing dimensions, minimum slopes, underlayment sequencing, and asphalt type by slope are pairs that come up in the practice questions.

Start Your South Carolina Roofing Exam Prep Today

Effective South Carolina roofing exam prep comes down to repetition against realistic items with your references in hand. Our full SC roofing license practice test mirrors the official outline's topic weights and gives you 65 questions, with an explanation for every item and a citation wherever the answer comes from a reference, so you learn where the answer lives, not just what it is.

Start with the free practice exam, review the citations for anything you miss, tab those pages in your books, and repeat until your lookups are fast. That routine — practice, cite, tab, repeat — is the core of any working PSI South Carolina roofing study guide.