William Trahant Roofing

Seven hundred and sixty-six permitted jobs and a D- from the Better Business Bureau. Both of those things are true about William Trahant Roofing, and the gap between them is the whole story. The Lynn company has been pulling roofing permits across the North Shore and inner suburbs for years — 156 in the last three alone, in Everett, Revere, Malden, Topsfield, Wakefield, Manchester, Danvers and Marblehead, where it stripped and reshingled a house, garage and shed on Greystone Road in May 2024. The jobs are what you would expect: tear-offs, reshingles, rubber flat sections, typically around $13,000. Its own listings add chimney and chimney-liner repair, gutter covers, skylights and commercial snow plowing. The Better Business Bureau records a 14-employee corporation under president William Trahant Jr., with Ken Trahant as manager, and the family has been trading under some form of the name since 1920. The Better Business Bureau grades the business D-, and gives one reason for it: failure to respond to three complaints filed against the company. That is not a judgment on the roofing — it is a judgment on what happens when a customer is unhappy, and it lines up uncomfortably with the only detailed customer account on record. In that account, posted in May 2024, a homeowner who came through a neighbour's referral described a large crew stripping and reshingling at impressive speed, then refusing to replace crinkled weather stripping under a dormer because that was how it looked when they took it off. Two years later the drip edge did not line up with the fascia and shingles were lifting. From September 2023 the customer asked repeatedly for someone to come and look; the answer for eight months was that the schedule would be checked. Someone from the company eventually inspected the wrong house and reported moss on a chimney that was not theirs. A later visit happened unannounced while the owner was out, and the email afterwards attributed the problem to anything but the company's workmanship, with a paid estimate offered to fix it. Their verdict: fine if you want a roof on fast, not if you need a mistake put right. Credentials need care here. The state registry shows home improvement contractor registration 116746, held in the name William Trahant Roofing, EXPIRED. BuildZoom separately lists a different registration, 178945, as active, along with construction supervisor licence CSSL-106284 — but those are the directory's records, printed alongside three cancelled ones and with the same CSSL number appearing twice under two different licence types. Before signing anything, ask which registration number is current and check it yourself with the Office of Consumer Affairs and the Department of Public Safety. Porch shows 3.8, but says plainly that figure is drawn from 65 reviews published elsewhere rather than collected there, so it does not add independent weight. If speed on a straightforward tear-off is what matters, the permit history says they do a lot of them. Get the callback and warranty terms in writing first, and confirm the registration.