Esposito Construction Company

Sam Esposito's shop is the kind you hire for the awkward, particular jobs — a retaining wall that has to come down and go back up, tile cut around tub controls so the seams don't show, an older house that needs its plaster put back the way it was. The praise in his reviews is unusually specific about craft. A 2008 customer described tile replaced around a tub spout with no visible cuts, and the whole wall regrouted at no extra charge. A 2015 homeowner wrote that he photographed progress while they couldn't be there, flagged termites he found behind a damaged ceiling, and still finished ahead of schedule. Another that year had a damaged retaining wall rebuilt and a new walkway laid, and said the one hiccup got fixed without argument. Angi puts him at 4.8 across five ratings, HomeAdvisor at 4.3 across three. The catch is the calendar: every written account of his work falls between 2007 and 2016, the newest a kitchen remodel a customer priced at $9,000 and called the kitchen of her dreams. Two cautions sit in that older material, and they point the same way — a very small operation stretched thin. A 2007 customer felt their job slid to "secondary" once a more lucrative one came along. A 2008 customer's project stalled when the owner fell ill, since waiting for him was the only option. And on Yahoo Local a commenter who hired him for a patio disputed the pitch outright, saying he had been told the company had 15 years behind it, owned its equipment and employed twelve people, when the truck and the Bobcat turned up rented. The listings don't agree with each other either. Angi places the business in Peabody, HomeAdvisor at 29 Pleasant Street in Marblehead, the Yahoo listing in Swampscott; the two directories put his tenure at 29 and 34 years while his own HomeAdvisor blurb claims over twelve. So: a skilled tile and masonry hand whose written history is a decade old. For a small, finishable job the older accounts suggest you will like the finish. For anything larger, get crew size, equipment and schedule in writing, ask who covers the work if he is out, and ask for two references from the last couple of years.