Richard Frati

Eighteen permits, ten years, and not a single customer review anywhere — this is a sheet-metal and HVAC operation known almost entirely through town permit desks. The business trades as East Air Mechanical Inc out of 3 Conrad Terrace in Saugus, with Richard Frati named as owner on its Better Business Bureau file. That file lists the company as started in January 2014, twelve years in business, with eight employees, and gives it an A+ rating — while also stating plainly that East Air Mechanical is not BBB accredited. Those are two separate facts worth reading separately. The permit trail says more about the actual work than any marketing would. It runs from 2015 to 2025 and leans hard on hydronic air handlers, condensers and new ductwork: two air handlers and a new AC system on Nahant Street in Marblehead in 2021, hydronic air handlers with first-floor sheet metal in West Newton in 2019, ductwork for first and second floor HVAC in Peabody in 2016. Five of the eighteen are in Marblehead itself — Nahant Street, Buchanan Road, Page Road, Pickwick Road and Ocean Avenue — most of them clustered in 2021 and 2022, which is a real footprint in that town rather than a passing job. The work is not purely residential. A 2020 Chestnut Hill permit covers ductwork, make-up air and three HVAC units for a Blue Bottle Coffee, a 2015 South Boston job installed a walk-in cooler and two display coolers, and the largest permit on file — $218,900 for new heating, exhaust and ventilation in Brookline — was pulled in October 2025. A homeowner should expect a shop that also runs commercial mechanical jobs. Two things to settle before calling. The licence is the bigger one: BuildZoom prints a Massachusetts sheet-metal licence, number 1709, under a heading that reads License Not Verified, and states an expiration of March 2026 — a date that has already passed. That is the directory's own claim, not a registry check, so ask for the current licence and confirm it with the Commonwealth's E-Licensing board directly. The second is address: BuildZoom lists a headquarters in Derry, New Hampshire alongside the Saugus address, so it is worth asking which entity and which state's registration will be on the contract. For a Marblehead or North Shore house needing hydronic air handlers, condensers or new ductwork, the permit history lands squarely in that lane. With no written customer history at all, get references off the recent local permits and confirm the licence yourself.