Mark Sullivan, Owner-Operator — Roofing Boxborough and Sixteen Neighbouring Towns Since 2014

Boxborough Roofing Contractor works out of 859 Massachusetts Ave in Boxborough. The business is small on purpose. Mark Sullivan inspects the roofs, writes the quotes and is on site for the work, which means there is one person accountable from the first phone call to the final walkthrough and nobody in between whose job is closing.

The work is shaped by what this corner of the state actually has on it — fifteen Middlesex towns and two in Worcester County, running from Tyngsborough on the New Hampshire line down to Sudbury, and west to Harvard and Bolton. A lot of 1960s to 1990s ranches, capes and colonials with shallow overhangs and thin insulation at the eaves, which are the exact conditions that produce ice dams every February. Antique houses in Harvard, Concord and Groton with additions joined at odd angles, where the leak is almost always at a step flashing that was reused one roof too many times. Mill-era two-families in Maynard and Hudson packed close together, where staging matters as much as shingles. And on the open hills toward Bolton and Groton, wind exposure that lifts ridge caps and strips granules off south and west slopes years before the warranty says it should.

Every job starts the same way: on the roof where it is safe to be, then in the attic. The attic is where the honest answer usually lives, and going up there is the difference between diagnosing a roof and guessing at one. It is also, frankly, the reason we sometimes lose work — a homeowner who has been told they need a new roof does not always want to hear that they need baffles and an air-sealed ceiling instead. That is a trade we are happy to keep making.

Quotes are written and itemized before anything is torn off: tear-off, decking allowance, ice-and-water shield, underlayment, shingles, flashing, ventilation, disposal and permit, each on its own line. The reason for that level of detail is that it makes quotes comparable. When somebody else's total comes in lower, you can see which line they left out rather than guessing.

On replacements we file the building permit and coordinate the town inspection. In Boxborough that runs through the PermitPro portal and the building department at 29 Middle Road; the surrounding towns each have their own office and their own turnaround, which is one of the practical reasons a local roofer is worth more than a regional one. The permit is not a formality either — unpermitted roof work is a problem that surfaces years later, at the home inspection before your closing, and it can give an insurer grounds to dispute a claim in the meantime.

I have been roofing houses around Boxborough since 2014. The thing I would want a homeowner to know is that the roof is only ever half the system — the other half is the attic underneath it, and most of the expensive failures in this climate start up there rather than on the shingles. So I go in the attic before I write a number. Sometimes that turns a replacement quote into a much smaller ventilation and air-sealing job, which is a worse day for my invoice and a better one for the customer. I would rather be the roofer people in Boxborough, Acton and Littleton call back in eight years than the one who got one big cheque out of them. You can reach me at (978) 797-1851, Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm and Saturday 9am to 2pm.