Roofer in Franklin, MA

In the same 2020-2024 data, 1,800 of the town's 13,011 housing units were built in 1939 or earlier. That is about 13.8 percent.

Of the 12,370 occupied homes, 9,671 are owner occupied and 2,699 are rented. That is about 78.2 percent owner occupied. The Census Bureau also estimates the median value of an owner-occupied home in Franklin at $611,700.

Whatever the house is worth, get a written estimate you understand before you sign anything. Renters and landlords are welcome to call too. If you manage a rental in town, we will talk with whoever is dealing with the leak.

The town's Building & Inspections forms page has a section titled "Roof Repair". It holds the Building Permit Application and a set of Roof Repair Instructions. The instructions are a scanned image, so we have not been able to read them. No page we read states in plain text whether a re-roof needs a permit, so ask the department.

• Fee Schedule. The town's service fees as of 01/01/2025 list the residential building permit rate as $10 per $1,000 of job value, with a $75 minimum fee for all permit inspections. We cannot tell you from here how that applies to a roof, so ask the department before you plan around it.
• Homeowner Permits. The town's Homeowner Permit Applicant Warning Notice says a homeowner permit applies only to a person who owns and resides, or intends to reside, in a one or two family dwelling. It also says a homeowner who pulls their own permit waives rights to the Massachusetts Guaranty Fund.

Rules differ from town to town, and from address to address. We check the rules for your address first, so you know what applies before the work is quoted.

Franklin's 2025 Master Plan states that the town does not currently have any local historic districts. Its two historic districts are National Register districts, which are a listing and not local design review.

One of them is the Franklin Common National Register Historic District, listed in 2005. It includes properties on portions of Main Street, High Street, Union Street, Pleasant Street and Church Square.

The town also has a Demolition Delay Bylaw. The plan describes it as requiring a public hearing with the Historical Commission for a structure on the National or State Register of Historic Places, or built before 1930, to decide whether it is eligible for a one-year delay before a permit is issued. The plan excerpt we read does not say how the bylaw applies to roofing, so we will not claim it does or does not. If your house is an older one, ask the Building & Inspections Department, or give us your address and we will find out before we quote.

Franklin's 2020 Hazard Mitigation Plan update describes nor'easters as storms with sustained winds of 10 to 40 mph and gusts of up to 70 mph. It also reports 24 natural hazard events from 1991 onward that triggered federal or state disaster declarations including Norfolk County. Most of them involved flooding, and the others were hurricanes, nor'easters and severe winter weather.

Those figures describe the region's hazards, not any one roof. Wind, rain and winter weather are what act on a roof, and an on-roof look is how you find out what a given storm did to yours. For storm and winter questions, see our storm damage and insurance claims page and our ice dam guide.

We take roofing calls across the town, which uses ZIP code 02038 and covers 27.0 square miles, of which 26.7 square miles is land. The town's Master Plan says its historic population growth centered on the Downtown and Unionville areas.

The Hazard Mitigation Plan says Franklin is bordered by Norfolk and Wrentham on the east and south, Bellingham on the west, and Medway on the north. It places the town about 26 miles north of Providence, Rhode Island, and about 28 miles from Boston.

Not sure whether the rules above apply to your address? Call (401) 593-1512 and we will check before we quote.

We go up on the roof, and into the attic when it matters, before we tell you anything. You get a plain read on what we found, whether it is a repair, maintenance or a replacement, and what the town will want to see. Request an estimate or call (401) 593-1512.