How We Rank Plumbers: The Method Behind Our City Lists

Two tiers: Ranked now, Verified later

Our city pages rank local plumbers, so we owe you the method behind every list. There are two tiers.

• Ranked. Built from public records only: ratings, review counts, BBB files, company websites, state and city license lookups. Every list shows the date it was checked. This is what our city pages show today.
• Verified. A later step. A company earns a Verified badge only after we read its current insurance certificate and its written warranty for installs. No company carries the badge yet, so confirm insurance and warranty terms yourself before you sign.

Three rules that do not bend

1. Payment never buys a ranking position. A company cannot pay to be listed, to move up, or to keep a competitor off a list. Payment is not an input to the score.
2. Paid relationships are disclosed on the listing. If a listed contractor also pays us for referrals, the listing says so where you read it, not only on this page. The FTC expects paid connections that readers would not assume to be disclosed clearly^[4]. Waterheaterfacts.com is not a plumbing company, holds no plumbing license and does no plumbing work.
3. Quote requests work differently from lists. When you ask for a quote, we connect you with one licensed plumber who pays us for the introduction, and the quote form says so. That plumber may or may not appear on a city list.

Who gets removed before scoring

A company is left off a list, whatever its score would be, if any of these is true:

• A plumbing license the state requires is not found or not active on the public lookup. In Texas and Illinois this check is mandatory. In Ohio, where residential licensing is local, we record the local license when a public lookup exists.
• A documented red flag: an attorney general action, a BBB alert, license discipline, or a pattern of court disputes, each with a source we can link.
• Its own website or listing does not say it serves that city.
• It has no Google rating we could read on Google itself. Ratings shown in a company's own website widgets do not count.
• We could not confirm a physical business address in the state, or public records show the business has closed.

How the score works (0 to 100)

Factor	Points	How it is measured
Google rating	35	Star rating blended toward 4.1 stars using 25 imaginary reviews, so a 5.0 from 12 reviews does not beat a 4.8 from 900. A blended 3.0 or lower earns 0; 5.0 earns 35. A company needs at least 10 Google reviews to be ranked.
Review volume	15	Log scale: 10 reviews earns about 5, 100 about 10, 1,000 or more the full 15.
Years in business	15	From the state business record, the BBB file or the company's own site, capped at 25 years. For a franchise location we count the local business's age, not the brand's.
BBB record	15	A+ or A and accredited: 15. A+ or A, not accredited: 12. A minus to B: 9. B minus or C plus: 4. Lower: 0. No BBB profile: left out, so having no file neither helps nor hurts. Complaints are measured against size: 10 or more BBB complaints in 3 years per 1,000 Google reviews takes off 3 points; 20 or more takes off 5.
Published written warranty	10	Full points when the company publishes warranty terms on its website. We summarize what the website says; we have not read the company's actual contract.
Services	10	Share of the three core jobs the company lists: water heater replacement or installation, repair, and tankless work.

When we could not find a factor (no BBB file, no founding date, no published warranty terms found), we leave that factor out and scale the score over the factors we did find, and the listing says "not checked." Missing research never counts against a company. A company must score at least 60 to be listed, and a city gets a ranked list only when at least 5 companies qualify.

Ties go to the company with more reviews, then alphabetical order. Each listing opens to show its full score breakdown and every source we used.

Licensing we check, by state

State	What we confirm
Texas	An active license on the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners lookup, with the company's Responsible Master Plumber recorded[1].
Illinois	A licensed plumber or registered plumbing contractor with the Illinois Department of Public Health[2]. Chicago also licenses plumbing contractors.
Ohio	Residential plumbing is regulated by local building and health departments, not one state license[3]. We record the local license where a public lookup exists.

We record the license number and where we confirmed it, so you can check it yourself.

What the Verified badge will add

Before a company carries the badge, we will read its current certificate of general liability insurance (and workers' compensation where it has employees), and read its written install warranty: parts versus labor, how long each lasts, and whether it requires registration with the manufacturer.

How often we recheck

Ratings and review counts move daily, so every list shows the date its data was checked. We rebuild every list on one schedule, at least every 30 days, and every company is refreshed in the same run. A reader's report of a factual error, such as a closed business or a wrong license, is checked within 7 days and can remove a company early; it never moves a company up between scheduled rebuilds. We log who asked for each check. Report a mistake on our corrections page.

What this method cannot tell you

We do not inspect installs. A high score means strong public signals, not a promise that every job will go well. Ask for the permit where your city requires one, get the price in writing, and see how we match for how quote referrals work.