How we verify listings | Bathtub Replacement

Where this site has a state license record for a city, every plumber and bath specialist on that page comes from it. The agency behind that record varies by state: a labor department in some, a contractors board or a business regulator in others.

For each of those, we check the license's active status, its class or specialty, and its effective date, then group the result by trade rather than presenting one undifferentiated list.

A city with no license record in this site's file gets a different kind of page: it ranks businesses from a Google Maps search in one combined list, not split by trade, with a star score that discounts a thin review count, and the page names whichever month we last pulled it.

Listings are rechecked on a rolling basis. To dispute one or ask for a correction, contact contact@bathtubreplacement.net.

Where the listings come from

California: contractor license records of the California Contractors State License Board, from the CSLB Public Data Portal: License Master file dataset. CSLB notes that license status can change at any time and points to its license check for the most current status. How to check a license in California.
Colorado: contractor license records of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA). How to check a license in Colorado.
Connecticut: contractor license records of the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection. How to check a license in Connecticut.
Florida: contractor license records of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, from the Construction Industry Public Records (licensee files) dataset. How to check a license in Florida.
Minnesota: contractor license records of the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. How to check a license in Minnesota.
Nevada: contractor license records of the Nevada State Contractors Board. How to check a license in Nevada.
Oregon: contractor license records of the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services, Building Codes Division. How to check a license in Oregon.
Virginia: contractor license records of the Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation, Board for Contractors. How to check a license in Virginia.
Washington: contractor license records of the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries, from the L&I Contractor License Data - General dataset. data.wa.gov lists this dataset as updated three times a day. How to check a license in Washington.

Each license listing also links to its own record on the state agency's website, so you can check it at the source.

What we check before a business is listed

The license is active in the registry when we pull the data. Businesses with any other status are left out.
The license hasn't passed its expiration date.
The business matches bathtub replacement. We match on the registry's specialty classification, the registered business name, or both. That's why every listing shows its license class: check that it fits your job.
The business address on record is in a city with at least 3 matching businesses. Smaller cities don't get a page yet.

What each listing shows

Business name: As registered with the state, with capitalization tidied up.
Category: Our label for why the business is listed on this site, based on its specialty or registered name.
License class: The specialty the registry lists for the business, for example General or Roofing.
License number: The contractor license or registration number the registry uses.
Status: Active as of the date we checked. We don't list any other status.
Effective and expiration dates: When the current license took effect and when it expires, as the registry reports them.
Business type: For example limited liability company, corporation or individual, shown on each business's profile when the registry provides it.
City and ZIP: From the business address on record. They show where a business is based, not the area it serves, which is why we say “based in”.
Verify license: A link to the business's own record on the state agency's website.

What we leave out on purpose

We don't publish phone numbers, street addresses or the names of owners and principals, even where the registry lists them. The business name is the only name we show.

How often we refresh

We re-pull the registry data and rebuild these pages from it. Every city page shows the date its listings were last checked; the current listings were checked on September 30, 2026. A license can change between our checks, so the Verify license link, which opens the live record, is always the final word.

Top-rated lists

Plumbers in one column, bath specialists in the other: that's how every other page on this site sorts its pros, straight from a trade license file. A handful of cities don't have that file here. For those, we search Google Maps once, for "bathtub replacement," and rank the single list that comes back instead of splitting it.

A listing gets cut if it's closed, filed under a Google category that has nothing to do with the trade (think a fixture retailer or a site that just resells leads), named after a person rather than a company, short on reviews (under three), or simply too far away, the radius runs from about six miles up to twenty-five depending on how the city is laid out. What's left is ranked with a formula that leans on review volume as much as the star score itself, so a perfect five-star count of three loses to a steady 4.8 built on hundreds.

We won't publish a city under five qualifying businesses, and ten is the cap once we do. None of this sorts plumbers from specialists the way our trade-based pages do, and none of it checks a license either, so ask directly who handles the drain and supply connections, and get their license or registration number before anyone touches them. Each page names the month its ratings came from.

The details, the same on every top-rated page (3,405 city pages on this site):

One Google Maps search per city for “bathtub replacement”, for cities of 10,000 or more people where this site has no license page. In 616 of those cities, where that search turns up too few businesses for a list, the list comes from the broader “bathroom remodeling contractor” search, filtered the same way.
Left out: businesses marked closed, businesses outside a matching Google category (stores, suppliers and showrooms among them), businesses far from the city center (about 6 to 25 miles, depending on the city's size), businesses with fewer than 3 reviews, and names that are a person's name or belong to a lead marketplace or a big-box store.
Ranked by a Bayesian average of the Google rating, (rating × reviews + 4.3 × 15) ÷ (reviews + 15), so a 5.0 from 3 reviews ranks below a 4.8 from 300.
A city needs at least 5 businesses that pass; the page shows the top 10.
Each listing shows its rank, Google rating, number of Google reviews, Google category, the town and ZIP in its address, and a link to its Google Maps listing. No phone numbers, websites, street addresses or review text.
Ratings were checked between September 2026 and October 2026. They change every day, so open the Google reviews link for the current figure.

A rating is not a license check and not an endorsement. Before you hire anyone, ask for the license or registration number your state or city requires and check it with the office that issued it.

What we don't do

We don't review or endorse contractors, and a listing isn't a recommendation. License listings are sorted alphabetically; top-rated lists are ranked only by Google rating and review count, as described above. No business pays to be listed, to be left off or for its position. If we ever add paid placements, they will be marked Sponsored. How we make money.

Something wrong?

Business owners can claim a listing to ask for a correction, or ask us to remove it.