How We Rank Plumbers: The Method Behind Our City Lists

What a city list is

A city list ranks local plumbers on a 0 to 100 score built from records we checked and dated. Every number on a listing shows where it came from and the date it was checked. Method version 2.1, in use from October 2026.

Three rules that do not bend

1. No one can pay for a rank. Payment is not an input to any score. We compute every list without knowing who pays us, and our own test checks that the ranks come out identical whether no company or every company is marked as paying.
2. Payment decides one thing: who receives quote requests in a city. On a city with a list, that company must already be in our top 5 there and pass every license and red-flag check. If it drops to #6 or #7 it gets one rebuild of grace, with its true rank shown; below that, off the list, or failing any check, its requests stop. A city with no paying company shows no quote button at all.
3. Paid relationships are disclosed where you read them. A paying company's card says so, its links are marked as sponsored, and a line above every list says how we make money. 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.

Who is left off a list

Reasons are never published, but these are the rules. A company is left off, whatever its score would be, if:

• 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 Texas the license must also show a current insurance certificate on file with the state board. In Ohio, where residential licensing is local, we check the local license where the city requires one.
• A documented red flag turns up: an attorney general action, license discipline, a pattern of court judgments, or a BBB alert, each with a source we can link.
• The business is closed or inactive in state records, has no physical street address in the state, is a lead marketplace or directory, or is owned by or employs anyone at Strive LeadGen or their family.
• Its own website or listing does not say it serves that city.
• A check is still pending, or a required record (its Google rating or a founding date) has not been collected yet. We do not guess missing records.
• Its blended Google rating is below 3.8, or its score is below 60.

How the score works

Factor	Points	How it is measured
Google rating	30	Star rating blended toward 4.3 stars using 25 imaginary reviews, so a 5.0 from 12 reviews does not beat a 4.8 from 900. A blended 3.5 or lower earns 0; 5.0 earns 30.
Google review count	15	Log scale up to 3,000 reviews: 10 reviews earns about 4.5, 100 about 8.6, 1,000 about 13.
Years in business	20	Square-root curve capped at 50 years: 10 years earns about 9, 25 about 14, 50 the full 20.
License tenure	10	Years the license of record has been held, where the state publishes the date (the Texas plumbing board). We have not imported those dates yet, so this factor is not used today.
Local permits	15	Water heater permits the company pulled in the city in the last 24 months, compared with the busiest companies there. Only in cities whose permit data captures most of the work. No city qualifies yet, so this factor is not used today.
Services	6	Share of the three core jobs the company lists on its website: replacement or installation, repair, and tankless work.
Published written warranty	4	4 if the company publishes warranty terms on its website, 0 if we read the site and found none. We have not read the actual contract.

Google ratings. Ratings and review counts were collected from Google search results on the date shown on each listing, and will be re-checked on each rebuild. A listing whose reading is more than 60 days old at a rebuild drops off until it is re-checked. We never use the Google Places API, never copy review text or star images, and never mark up ratings as review schema. A company with no Google listing scores 0 for both Google factors, so it cannot reach 60.

Points that cannot be measured in a city (for example, local permits where the city has no usable permit data) are left out for every company in that city alike, and the score is shown out of 100 on the points that remain. Each card shows its data coverage, such as "81 of 85 measurable points". A company needs at least 90% coverage to be listed.

"Not found" and "could not check". If we looked and a thing does not exist (no published warranty, no Google listing), it scores 0. Only a record whose source failed on two logged attempts on different days counts as "could not check"; it is estimated at the 25th percentile of companies in that city, marked "estimated" on the card, and a yes or no factor such as a warranty is estimated at 0. Google ratings and founding dates are never estimated.

Founding dates. We use the earliest date we can verify: a state business record, a license issue date, a predecessor business at the same license or address, a BBB "business started" date, or a date on the company's own website. A date from only one non-government source counts for at most 20 years until a second source confirms it. For a franchise location we count the local business, not the brand.

Ties and titles. Ties go to more points from measured records (estimates excluded), then higher coverage, then the older business, then alphabetical order. If three or more companies tie on the rounded score in the top 5, that city's list does not publish that month. A list is titled "Top-Rated" only if every listed company has a Google listing with at least 10 reviews and a displayed rating of 4.0 or higher; otherwise it is titled "Highest-Scoring".

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.

How often we recheck

Each state's lists are rebuilt on a fixed day each month, and every company in a city is refreshed in the same run. A list that has not been rebuilt within 35 days comes down. 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; a correction that would raise a score is applied to the same field for every company at the next rebuild, never to one company alone. Weights, curves and rules change only at a quarterly review, and every change is logged on this page. Report a mistake on our corrections page.

Change log

• October 2026, method 2.1. BBB grades removed from scoring and from listings. Blended rating prior changed from 4.1 to 4.3 stars. Reviews count from the first review, with no 10-review cutoff. A company with no Google listing now scores 0 for both Google factors. Years in business uses a longer curve, capped at 50 years. Insurance and complaint records became pass or fail checks instead of points. Missing records are no longer left out in a company's favor. Quote partners must already rank in the city's top 5.

What this method cannot tell you

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