Paul John and Son Roofing

A homeowner texted about a roof leak on a Sunday in March 2026. Nelson Dasilva was at the house first thing Monday, and the roof was repaired by Tuesday afternoon — and, that customer noted, it was not the first rescue: Nelson had done their entire roof five years earlier. That pattern runs through nearly every account of Paul John and Son. The Woburn company is small — the Better Business Bureau lists one employee — and its owner is the whole selling point. Reviewers name him constantly: Nelson reflashing a chimney and sending photos while the owners were away, Nelson and his partner repairing a leaking slate roof in Reading, Nelson's crew working the tight streets of Somerville, as one put it, fast, careful and very tidy. The specialty is the harder end of the trade. The company runs its own copper shop, hand-producing standing seam roofing, cupolas, chimney caps and architectural sheet metal, and it holds a 2019 NACIA award for architectural copper plus a feature in Builder & Architect Magazine. A February 2026 customer whose Somerville condo had a rubber roof leaking beneath a roof deck — flashed short by the original developer — described the crew finding the root cause, carefully dismantling and preserving the deck, and repairing the sheathing underneath. In April 2026 another had slate repairs and new copper gutters across the whole house on a budget proposal they called accurate and honored, even after unexpected extra work. Speed and cleanup recur. One April 2026 roof went on in a single day, the dumpster was gone the next morning, and someone came back to sweep the property for nails. The BBB grades the business A+, and it has been trading since 2003. The Angi listing notes Se habla español. One thing to settle before signing. The Massachusetts home improvement contractor registration on file for Paul John and Son Corp, number 179575, is expired. The company's own site says it holds an HIC registration and a Construction Supervisor License but publishes no numbers, and BuildZoom lists a different HIC number, 213454, as active. HIC registration is what gives a homeowner access to the state Guaranty Fund when a job goes wrong, so ask for the current number and check it yourself with the state's Office of Consumer Affairs. Worth knowing too: almost all the written praise arrived in one stretch between February and April 2026, so the record is shallower than the count suggests. The right call for copper, slate and cedar work, and for a leak you need looked at now — with the registration status confirmed in writing first.