Charles Gambale

Fourteen permits, eleven towns, twelve years — that is Charles Gambale's permit history on BuildZoom, and it is most of what is known about him. The Swampscott builder's permitted work runs 2012 to 2024 through Marblehead, Beverly, Peabody, Danvers, Salem, Nahant, Melrose, Malden, Haverhill, Cambridge and Boston, the pattern of a North Shore contractor who travels for the right job. BuildZoom lists him for kitchens, bathrooms, basements, whole-home remodels and additions — room-scale renovation rather than small repairs. Its own scoring puts him at 95, which it places in the 78th percentile of the contractors it tracks. The written customer history is one line, and it is old. A January 2013 reviewer called him the best contractor they had used, skilled and friendly, and said the job on their house went well. That is a single anonymous account from thirteen years ago, and nothing written has followed it — so the permit trail, not the star, is the part worth weighing. On licensing, everything here is BuildZoom's own paperwork rather than a state check. The site lists a Massachusetts construction supervisor license and a home improvement contractor registration for him, and separately shows a second construction supervisor number as inactive, cancelled at some point per the Department of Public Safety. Ask him for current numbers and run them against the state registry yourself before signing. He is a plausible call for a permitted remodel or addition on the North Shore, where a decade-long permit trail says more than a review count would. Ask for references from the past two years of jobs — the permits show recent work, but nobody has written about it.