Methodology and Editorial Principles

What We Do

We compile information about roofing contractors from government and third-party sources, organize it into a consistent profile for each business, and publish it as a neutral, searchable directory. We report what the sources show, with dates and citations where available. We are not a contractor, a broker, or a party to any agreement between a homeowner and a contractor, and a listing is not a recommendation.

A profile is a snapshot of records, not a verdict about a business.

Where Our Information Comes From

We draw from public and third-party sources, including:

• Business registration: Secretary of State filings for entity status, formation date, and standing.
• Licensing: state contractor licensing boards, where a state maintains a searchable roofing or contractor license database.
• Safety enforcement: OSHA inspection and citation records published by the U.S. Department of Labor.
• Lead-safe certification: EPA Lead-Safe (RRP) firm certification records.
• Permits: building-permit data where it is published and attributable.
• Address verification: USPS address data used to classify an address (for example, residential, commercial, or a mail-receiving agency).
• Manufacturer certifications: published contractor programs from manufacturers such as GAF, Owens Corning, CertainTeed, Malarkey, IKO, TAMKO, Atlas, and VELUX, plus inspector certifications published by Haag.
• Reviews: aggregate ratings and review counts from public review platforms.
• Web presence: domain registration and history used to estimate how long a business has operated online.

Sources vary by state and by business. A field may be blank simply because a given source does not exist, is not digitized, or does not cover that jurisdiction.

How We Match Records to a Business

The hardest part of a records project is attribution: making sure a record actually belongs to the business it is shown under. We match records using identifiers in this rough order of reliability:

• Stable identifiers such as a state license number, where one exists, which is the most reliable way to join a record to a business.
• Business name and address together, normalized to account for common variations in spelling, suffixes, and formatting.
• Supporting signals such as phone number, website, or service area, used to corroborate a match.

When our confidence in a match is low, we prefer to leave a field unattributed rather than risk linking a record to the wrong business. This means we will sometimes show less than the full picture. We accept that tradeoff because a missing record is a smaller problem than a misattributed one.

How We Present Records

We present each source as an individual marker, grouped under a “Public Records” section, with two design rules:

• Point in time. Records reflect what a source showed when we last checked, with a date attached. Records change, and a profile can lag the source.
• Source and link. Where possible, we name the source and link to it so you can verify the underlying record yourself.

Some profiles show a Good Standing indicator. This is a records-derived roll-up: it reflects what the public records show and cannot be bought, influenced, or removed by payment. A separate Member designation reflects a paid business relationship and nothing more. Membership never changes a record or a Good Standing status.

Editorial Principles

These principles govern how we write and characterize everything we publish.

• We characterize the record, not the business. We describe what a source reports. We do not state or imply that a business is dishonest, incompetent, or unlawful.
• Absence is not an accusation. “No record found,” “not found,” or “none” does not mean a business did anything wrong, is unlicensed, or is out of compliance. It may reflect source limitations, timing, a jurisdiction that does not require or publish that record, or a name or address mismatch. We name these benign explanations rather than leaving a blank to be misread.
• We keep the ceiling on our claims honest. We describe what each record proves and what it does not. A clean record is evidence of a clean record, not proof of good work.
• We attach dates and sources. Every characterization is anchored to a source and a point in time so readers can check it and weigh how current it is.
• Money never changes the records. No payment, membership, or business relationship alters, improves, or suppresses any public record or records-derived status. This is the core of the project.
• We correct in good faith. When we are shown a specific, verifiable error, we fix, annotate, or remove the affected record.

Automated Content

RooferWatch operates at scale, and some content, including profile summaries and certain analysis, is generated programmatically from structured data rather than written by hand for each business. Automated content follows the same editorial principles above, and it is subject to the same correction process. If an automated summary is wrong, tell us and we will fix it.

What Our Records Do and Do Not Prove

To keep expectations honest:

• A license record reflects status as reported by a licensing board at a point in time. It is not a guarantee of current good standing or of workmanship.
• An OSHA citation reflects an inspection finding. Findings can be contested, reduced, vacated, or settled, and a citation is not a final judgment of fault.
• A permit history reflects only permits that are published and attributable. Missing permits may mean a jurisdiction does not require or publish them, not that work was unpermitted.
• An address classification reflects USPS data about an address type. It is a data point, not a judgment about a business’s legitimacy.
• Reviews reflect third-party platform data we do not control and cannot independently verify.
• Business registration reflects filings with a Secretary of State and may lag real-world changes.

A profile is a starting point for your own due diligence, not a substitute for it. Before hiring, independently confirm a contractor’s license, insurance, and references.

Updates and Refresh Cadence

We refresh data continuously, running updates every day. Because the directory spans thousands of pages, any individual profile may still go weeks or even months between substantive updates. Sources update on their own schedules, and some are far harder to check programmatically than others, so we pull them at different frequencies. The “last checked” date shown next to a given record is the authoritative indicator of how current that specific field is, more reliable than the date on this page or on the profile as a whole. We make every effort to keep the directory as accurate and current as the underlying sources allow.

Corrections

If you believe a record is inaccurate, you can ask us to review it. Submit a correction request from your account, through a support ticket, or by email at support@rooferwatch.com. We review reasonable, specific, good-faith requests and act on them at our discretion. We are not obligated to remove accurate information drawn from a public source, and where a source is the origin of an error, we may direct you to correct it at the source so the fix carries through everywhere.

Independence

RooferWatch is an independent project. We are not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any listed business, government agency, review platform, or manufacturer. All trademarks and certification marks are the property of their respective owners and are used for identification and reference only.

Contact

• General & corrections support@rooferwatch.com