Scott A. Carpenter

The permits under Scott Carpenter's name run from roof strip-and-reroofs in four towns — Methuen, West Newton, Waltham and Fitchburg — to a $130,000 new single-family house in Tewksbury in 2017. He works out of 398 Simons Rd in Townsend. BuildZoom lists his trades at the finish end of the job: carpentry, cabinets, decks and porches, doors and windows. The nine permitted projects on that page run from 2009 to 2017, and they also include electrical permits for radon-fan wiring in Auburndale, Newtonville and Brookline, plus a $70,000 kitchen and second-floor bathroom remodel in Arlington, also 2017. That is a wide span of work — trim and cabinets at one end, a whole house at the other. Ask which end he is set up to take on for a job like yours, get the scope and the price in writing, and ask for a current certificate of insurance. BuildZoom shows a Massachusetts Construction Supervisor licence number, CS-053664, along with several other numbers under his name; look them up yourself on the state's licence register before anything is signed.