New Hampshire does not license roofers. There is no state exam, no contractor board and no number you can look up to see whether the company in your driveway is allowed to be there. The state’s own Insurance Department says it plainly: general contractors here are not required to hold a license. That puts the vetting on you, and most homeowners only do it once every twenty or thirty years, usually in a hurry, often after a storm.
We have been on the other side of that conversation since 1998, when Jay Carnes was hand-nailing roofs by himself, and from our shop on Lafayette Road in Hampton Falls since the company moved to the Seacoast. We have watched good roofers lose jobs to bad paperwork and bad roofers win jobs with good salesmanship. This is the checklist we would use to vet a roofing contractor in New Hampshire for our own parents’ house. Every item is something you can confirm yourself before a single shingle comes off.
The short version
- New Hampshire gives you no roofing license to check, but it does give you four real tools: the Secretary of State’s business lookup, the state’s free workers’ compensation coverage search, the Attorney General’s consumer complaint line and the manufacturers’ own certification directories.
- Insurance is the first thing to prove and the easiest thing to fake. Have the certificate sent by the agent, read the dates and the business name, confirm workers’ compensation separately, and call the carrier.
- A New Hampshire roofing contract should name the shingle, say what happens to rotten decking, spell out ice and water barrier coverage, and put the payment schedule and both warranties in writing.
- Pay a deposit, never the bulk of the job, and never in cash. A contract signed at your door after a storm carries a three business day right to cancel under New Hampshire law.
- Reviews, references and certifications all say more when you check the source yourself: the manufacturer’s directory, the reviews the manufacturer collects, and a job from five winters ago rather than last month.
What does New Hampshire actually give you to check a roofer with?
The first thing people ask us is where to look up a roofer’s license, and the honest answer is nowhere. New Hampshire licenses electricians, plumbers and a few other trades, and leaves roofing and general contracting alone. A roofer who says they are “fully licensed in New Hampshire” either means a town business registration or means nothing at all. Ask what license they mean and watch the answer.
What the state does give you tells you about the specific company rather than a minimum standard. Start with the Secretary of State’s online business lookup and search the exact name on the estimate. You will see the formation date and whether the entity is in good standing. A company that has roofed in New Hampshire for fifteen years under one name looks different from one formed in March, and a name that does not come up at all is your first real finding.
Next, workers’ compensation. New Hampshire law requires any employer with one or more employees to carry it, and the state’s free lookup at ewccv.com/cvs returns the insurer who wrote a policy for a given employer on a given date. If a crew of six is on your roof and the lookup finds nothing, an injury on your property can become your problem.
Then the Attorney General. The Consumer Protection Bureau is where New Hampshire homeowners file complaints against contractors, and its consumer alert on home improvement scams reads a lot like this post, which tells you how often the same mistakes get made. Last, the manufacturers, who keep public directories of the contractors they certify. More on that below, because it is the check people skip most.
How do you read a roofer’s certificate of insurance?
A certificate of insurance is a one page summary, and a summary can be out of date the day after it is printed. The New Hampshire Insurance Department’s guidance on contractor insurance matches what we tell people: a verbal “we’re insured” is not sufficient, the certificate should come from the agent or the company, and you should contact them to confirm the policy is in force.
Here is what we would read, top to bottom. The insured’s name should be the same legal name that is on your estimate and in the Secretary of State lookup; a certificate in the owner’s personal name does not cover the company you are hiring. The policy period should run past the end of your job. Under general liability, look for the words “products and completed operations.” That is the part of the policy that responds if a leak shows up after the crew has left, and it is the part a bargain policy leaves out. Under workers’ compensation there should be an actual policy number, not a note that the owner is exempt as a sole proprietor. A sole proprietor with a crew on your roof is not a sole proprietor.
The Insurance Department also suggests asking to be named as an additional insured, and asking that any subcontractors carry coverage equal to or greater than the contractor’s own. Both are fair requests. When a homeowner asks us for a certificate, we hand over our agent’s phone number with it. That is the whole test, and the call takes two minutes.
What should a New Hampshire roofing contract say before you sign it?
New Hampshire does not mandate a contract form for roofing work, so the contract is as good as the roofer who wrote it. The Attorney General’s advice is a written contract before any work is done or any payment made, with a detailed scope, the materials, the total price and the schedule of payments, and at least three written, itemized estimates so you can compare them line by line. That is the right standard. Here is what we would want to see for a Seacoast house.
The shingle, named. Not “architectural shingles” but the manufacturer and the product line, because the warranty depends on it and two quotes with the same total can be installing very different roofs. Tear-off, stated. Decking: older New Hampshire houses often have board sheathing, some of it soft, and the contract should say how many sheets are included and what each additional sheet costs, so a surprise on day one is a line item and not an argument.
Ice and water barrier is the item we would read twice. The building code requires an ice barrier at the eaves in climates like ours, running from the roof edge to a point at least 24 inches inside the exterior wall line, and on a low pitch or a deep overhang that means two courses, not one. We also run it in every valley and around every chimney, skylight and pipe. A quote that says “ice and water shield at eaves” with no dimension is leaving room to do the minimum. The same goes for flashing: new step flashing at the walls and new chimney flashing, written down, because reused flashing is where the first leak comes from on a reroof.
Ventilation belongs in the contract too. A new roof over an attic that cannot breathe will not last its warranty, and in this climate it grows ice dams and condensation; we covered why in our guide to roof ventilation in New Hampshire. Finally, the permit. Seacoast towns differ on whether a reroof needs one, and the contractor handles whatever your town requires. The Insurance Department lists a contractor who asks the homeowner to pull the permit in their own name as a warning sign. It usually means the company will not put its own name in front of the building inspector.
How much should you pay up front, and when?
A roofing company with real suppliers and real credit does not need your money to buy your shingles. A deposit is reasonable, because it holds a slot on a schedule that fills up in spring and again after the first nor’easter. The balance should be due when the work is done, the yard has been magnet-swept and you have looked at the finished roof with the project manager.
The payment schedule tells you about the company’s finances more than anything else on the contract. A roofer who needs most of the money before the dumpster arrives is paying for the last job with your job, and that is the company that disappears mid-season. We have heard every version of the cash discount pitch on the Seacoast, and the discount is never worth losing the record of what you paid. If the number is bigger than you want to pay at once, say so before you sign. We offer financing options for that reason, and any established company should have an answer that does not involve a wire transfer.
What does the three day right to cancel cover in New Hampshire?
Storm season brings the knock on the door. After a wind event, crews work their way through Hampton, Rye and Seabrook with a clipboard and a story about your neighbor’s roof. Some of them are fine. Some are gone by the time the check clears. New Hampshire’s home solicitation statute, RSA 361-B, exists for that knock. If the sale happened at your home and you did not invite the company there, you have until the end of the third business day to cancel in writing, and the contract has to say so.
The practical use is simple. Nothing a legitimate roofer offers expires tonight. If a price is only good if you sign before the truck leaves, let the truck leave, run the checks in this post on a weekday morning, and call back if the company passes. Our guide to emergency storm damage roof repair on the Seacoast covers tarping and the first day after a storm, before any contract gets signed at all.
How do you check a manufacturer certification instead of taking the logo’s word?
Manufacturer certifications matter more in New Hampshire than in a state with licensing, because they are the closest thing to a third party vouching for the installer. GAF Master Elite requires proof of insurance, a track record and ongoing training, and it is the only tier that can offer GAF’s strongest warranties. We hold it, along with GAF’s President’s Club award, and both are on our GAF listing under our Hampton Falls address.
The reason to check rather than trust is that the badge gets borrowed. We have seen it on websites of companies GAF has never certified, and on vans belonging to crews that let it lapse years ago. The status expires when the requirements stop being met, and the logo does not remove itself. GAF has a certification verification page for exactly this, and we wrote up what each tier means for the warranty in our post on GAF Master Elite contractors in New Hampshire. One more question: is the certification held by the company on your contract, or by a company it subcontracts to? The name in the directory should be the name on the paperwork.
What do reviews and references tell you that paperwork cannot?
Every roofer has five star reviews. The useful ones are in the middle, where a customer had a problem, and the useful part is what happened next. Did the company come back? Did the owner answer like a person or a template? A company that has been in business a long time will have a few of these, and that is a good sign. Read them in more than one place: Google, the manufacturer’s directory, where the reviews are collected by the manufacturer and are harder to curate, and the Better Business Bureau, which shows complaints and how they were resolved.
References are where we would push. Any company can give you the three happiest customers from last month. Ask instead for two or three roofs the company put on four or five years ago in a town near you. A New Hampshire roof that was installed well looks the same after five winters. One that was not will show lifted shingle tabs, rusted drip edge, a stained valley or a ridge vent that has started to buckle. Drive past; you do not have to knock. Julie photographs every job we finish, which is how we can show a homeowner in Stratham a roof we did in Stratham, and every established roofer should be able to do the same from their own camera roll rather than a stock photo site.
What should the estimate visit look like?
We have written about the estimate visit in our guides to choosing a roofing contractor in Stratham and hiring a roofer in Exeter and Kingston, so we will keep this short. The visit is your one look at how the company works before you are committed. Notice whether the person shows up when they said they would, whether they go up or stand in the yard with a tablet, and whether they ask to see the attic, because that is where the ventilation and moisture problems live.
Ask who you will talk to once the job is sold. On a company our size, up to five crews can be out on a given day, and the person who estimates your roof is not the person nailing it. That is normal. What you want to know is who the project manager is and who is on site when the crew is working. You can meet those people on our team page.
Which warning signs mean stop, even if the price is good?
Most of these have come up already, so here they are in one place. The Attorney General’s list includes a contractor who will not give an address and phone number, or gives a post office box, who arrives in an unmarked vehicle from far away, who will not allow time for other estimates, and whose proposal lacks detail. We would add two from storm work. An offer to waive or cover your insurance deductible sounds generous and is insurance fraud, and a roofer willing to commit it on your claim will cut corners on your roof. And when the trucks in the neighborhood have plates from three states away, the warranty on their work is only as good as their willingness to drive back.
One honest note in the other direction. Not every job needs a company our size. If you have a single leaking pipe boot and a roof with fifteen years left in it, a good small local roofer who does repairs may be the right call, and we would rather tell you that than sell you a replacement. We do repairs too, and our roof repair page explains what we fix and when we will say a repair is not worth it. For what we install, from asphalt shingles to standing seam metal, see our roofing services. When you want a quote that holds up to every check in this post, request a free estimate or call (603) 686-7763. We will walk the roof, look in the attic, put the scope in writing and give you our agent’s number without being asked.
Frequently asked questions
Does New Hampshire require roofing contractors to be licensed?
No. New Hampshire does not license roofers or general contractors, though it does license electricians, plumbers and some other trades. There is no state exam or contractor board to check. Vet a roofer instead through the Secretary of State business lookup, the state’s workers’ compensation verification tool, the Attorney General’s consumer complaint records and the manufacturer’s certification directory.
How do I verify a roofer’s insurance in New Hampshire?
Ask for a certificate of insurance sent directly from the contractor’s insurance agent, confirm the business name and policy dates match your project, look for general liability with products and completed operations coverage, and check workers’ compensation separately through the state’s free lookup at ewccv.com/cvs. Then call the agent or carrier listed on the certificate to confirm the policy is active.
How much deposit should a New Hampshire roofer ask for?
A deposit at signing is normal. The New Hampshire Attorney General lists a down payment of more than half the final cost, or full payment before the job is completed, as a warning sign, along with cash-only deals and contractors who will only take payment apps. The balance should be due when the roof is complete and you have walked it with the contractor.
Can I cancel a roofing contract I signed at my door in New Hampshire?
Usually yes. Under New Hampshire’s home solicitation sales law, RSA 361-B, a contract signed at your home after the seller came to you can be cancelled in writing within three business days, and the contract must tell you about that right. A contract you sought out yourself, for example by calling a roofer for an estimate, is generally not covered, so ask before you sign.
What is products and completed operations coverage, and why does a roofer need it?
It is the part of a general liability policy that covers damage that shows up after the job is finished, such as a leak from a flashing mistake that appears the following winter. The New Hampshire Insurance Department tells homeowners to confirm a contractor’s policy includes it. A policy without it covers accidents during the work and nothing after the crew leaves.
