Presto Carpentry Painting & Roofing

Twelve employees, three separate websites, a service list that runs from decorative painting to slate roofs — and not one customer review anywhere. Presto Carpentry Painting & Roofing is a Prides Crossing outfit on Beverly's North Shore that presents itself as a full home-improvement house, and the paperwork around it is easier to check than the workmanship. What it does is broad by design. The Better Business Bureau lists interior and exterior painting, carpentry, wood and aluminum gutters, door and window installation, kitchen, bath and hardwood floor installation, and complete roofing for both residential and commercial customers — asphalt, rubber, and a stated specialty in wood shakes and slate. That last part matters on the North Shore, where slate and cedar roofs on older houses are their own trade; a painting company that also handles them is doing something more specialized than volume shingle work. The business details are firmer than the marketing. BBB records the company as started 1 June 1998 and incorporated in December 2006, run by president John Makris, with 12 employees and an alternate name, Presto Painting & Construction Company. Its Porch page tells a different story: 'since 1988' and '38 years in business'. Those two accounts are a decade apart, and only one of them comes from a source that keeps a dated file. The other thing to sort out before signing is accreditation. Porch carries the company's own line that it is 'an Accredited Business since 1/12/2007 with an A+ rating' — but the BBB profile itself states the business is NOT accredited. The A+ grade is real; the accreditation claim on top of it is not, and a company that repeats it in its own marketing is worth a direct question. Its OSHA and EPA lead-safe RRP certifications are likewise self-reported, and the lead-safe one is the consequential one on the pre-1978 housing this part of the coast is full of — ask to see the certificate. The company also says it is licensed in Massachusetts without giving a number, and none was confirmed against the state registry here. Who this suits: a homeowner on the North Shore with an older house needing painting, carpentry, gutters or a slate or shake roof, who is prepared to do the reference-checking themselves — because with no reviews published on any platform, there is nothing to read about how the work actually goes. Ask for the HIC registration number, the current EPA RRP certificate, and two or three addresses of recent jobs you can look at.