What reviews of GTA pool companies actually tell you

Less than it seems. This index holds 442 GTA pool companies, and 424 of them carry a Google rating. Together they hold 37,944 reviews. Of those, 32,261 give five stars, which is 85.0 percent. Another 1,880 give four stars. Only 1,019 give two or three stars, and 2,784 give one star.

Because most reviews are five stars, most ratings are high. The median rating, the one in the middle when all 424 are lined up, is 4.8, and 215 of the 424 rated companies are rated 4.8 or higher. Another 104 sit between 4.5 and 4.7. Only 34 are rated below 4.0. When half the field shows 4.8 or better, a 4.8 on its own does not pick a company out.

The totals are also uneven. The median review count across rated companies is 35.5, while a single pool supply store holds 7,264 reviews, almost a fifth of the whole index. Without that store the share of five-star reviews barely moves, to 85.4 percent, so the pattern holds across the trade.

The site's about page quotes slightly different figures: 395 businesses with reviews, a middle figure of 40 reviews and 48.9 percent at 4.8 or better. It counts a narrower set of records. This guide counts every rated record, 424 in all.

Exactly 128 companies in the index show a perfect 5.0, and 57 of them have fewer than 10 reviews. Grouping the rated companies by how many reviews they hold shows the pattern:

Among the 95 companies with 1 to 9 reviews, 57 show a perfect 5.0. Among the 157 with 10 to 49 reviews, 51 do. Among the 132 with 50 to 199 reviews, 19 do. Among the 39 with 200 to 999 reviews, only 1 does. The only company with more than 1,000 reviews is rated 4.6.

The more reviews a company collects, the more likely it is that some customer was unhappy, and the less likely the rating stays perfect. A 5.0 on 6 reviews and a 4.7 on 300 are different kinds of evidence, and the second usually tells you more. This site's ranking allows for that. The methodology page explains that each company's rating is blended with the index average, as if it started with 10 extra reviews at that average. A 5.0 built on a handful of reviews is pulled toward the middle until it earns more history.

One-star reviews make up 7.3 percent of all the reviews in the index, more than two-star and three-star reviews combined. They are spread widely. Of the 424 rated companies, 285 have at least 1. Among the 172 companies with 50 or more reviews, 155 have at least 1, and only 17 have none.

The share changes a little by trade. One-star reviews are 9.2 percent of the reviews for companies filed under hot tubs and spas, 8.0 percent for pool supplies and 7.3 percent for pool builders. They are 5.4 percent for pool renovation, the lowest of the 8 categories. A company can sit in more than one category, so these shares overlap.

So a single one-star review is not a warning on its own. What matters is what the unhappy customers say and whether the same problem comes up more than once. That is what the review themes below try to capture.

For each company, the index stores up to 8 Google reviews, and 340 companies have the full 8. Those stored reviews were read and tagged against a fixed list of 32 themes. Of the 442 companies, 384 carry at least 1 theme. Each theme counts companies, not reviews, and each tag keeps the sentence it was read from.

The most common themes are about how a company deals with people. Stored reviews of 117 companies mention a fair price, 112 knowledgeable staff, 108 quick answers and 102 a company that explains the work. Keeping customers posted appears for 82 companies and attention to detail for 69.

The job themes show what the reviews are about. Opening and closing appears for 91 companies, new pool builds for 90, hot tubs and spas for 69 and liner replacement for 67. When you are choosing a company for one job, look for reviews that mention that job, since a company praised for new builds may never have been reviewed for a closing. Two guides cover those jobs: the pool closing guide and the liner replacement guide.

Of the 32 themes, 2 are complaints: reviewers reporting slow or no replies, and reviewers reporting work left unfinished. Stored reviews of 70 companies carry the first and 62 the second. In all, 103 companies carry at least 1 of the 2, and 29 carry both.

A high rating does not rule these out. The 103 companies average 4.2 stars, but 42 of them are rated 4.5 or higher and 10 are rated 4.8 or higher. Among companies rated 4.8 or higher, 4 carry the slow-reply theme and 6 carry the unfinished-work theme. A strong average can sit on top of a real, repeated complaint.

The share differs by trade. Complaint themes are most common among pool supply companies, at 24 of 59, roughly 4 in 10. They are least common among heating companies, at 7 of 42, and renovation companies, at 12 of 65, fewer than 1 in 5. Pool builders sit between, at 49 of 197. Company profile pages on this site list these two themes where they apply, after the positive ones.

Reviews are Google's, not this site's, and the methodology page notes they carry Google's own biases. The themes come from at most 8 stored reviews per company, not from every review. Those stored reviews also lean positive: of the 2,971 stored, 2,656 give five stars and 234 give one star.

Reviews also say nothing checkable about licences, insurance or warranties. This index holds no licence status, insurance record or warranty term for any company, and no workmanship inspection. Where a company's own website claims a licence or insurance, this site quotes it as the company's statement, such as "Says it is licensed", and never checks it with a registry.

So use reviews to spot patterns, and check the rest directly with the company. The builder checklist lists the questions a review cannot answer.

Start with the count. A rating on fewer than 10 reviews is thin, and in this index 60 percent of those companies show a perfect 5.0. A rating on 50 or more reviews has been tested by more customers.

Then read the one-star reviews, and look for the two complaints above: slow replies and unfinished work. One bad review is normal. The same complaint from several customers is a pattern.

Next, look for reviews about your job, whether that is a closing, a liner or a new build. Finally, compare companies within one trade on the category hubs, such as pool builders, where companies are listed in order of the published score. When you are ready, contact companies through their own websites, or send one request through the site's request form.

This guide is written by The Pool Trade Desk, the team that compiles PoolBuilderIndex. For this guide, the desk computed every figure from the index's own records of 442 companies, as they stood when this guide was published on 17 September 2026. No outside price source is used. Ratings and review counts come from public Google Maps records, which the methodology page describes. The review themes are read from the reviews stored on each record, as set out above. No review text is quoted, and no complaint theme is tied to a named company.

No listed company owns or funds PoolBuilderIndex, and no company can pay for a better position. The index earns nothing today. The request form passes a job to one of the highest-scoring companies listed in the area. The site is also building a paid route for work it passes on, which a company would have to agree to separately, as the page for contractors explains. Corrections go to corrections@poolbuilderindex.ca.