How we rank
Every score comes from public facts. Paying, claiming a listing and being a Theo customer never change a score or the order.
Who is listed
A business is listed when the state board's register shows an active licence in the trade's class (see the Arizona and California guides) and a mailing address in the city. We re-check the register every week.
The score, out of 100
| Part | Weight | How it's worked out |
|---|---|---|
| Years licensed | 30 | Years since the earliest active painting licence was issued, capped at 20. |
| Complaint record | 25 | Arizona: full marks with no open or disciplined complaints; minus 60% per disciplined case and 20% per open case. California: full marks with no citation, complaint or legal action disclosed on the CSLB licence page in the last 10 years; minus 60% per disclosure. When the record can't be read, this part is left out and the other weights are scaled up. |
| Bond and insurance on record | 10 | An active contractor's bond on the register. In California, also valid workers' comp cover or a declared exemption. |
| Google reviews | 35 | The Google rating, pulled towards 4.0 as if each business had 10 extra 4-star reviews, so a handful of 5-star reviews can't beat hundreds of 4.8s. A 3.0 scores nothing and a 5.0 scores in full. No reviews scores nothing. |
Ties are broken by licence number. The code is open to inspection in the BoardChecked repository (directory/boardchecked/rank.py).
Where each fact comes from
- Licence, bond, complaints, business type, phone: the state board's register (Arizona ROC Contractor Search; CSLB "List by Classification" download).
- Rating, reviews, photos, hours, website: Google Places, re-read at least every 30 days and shown with Google's attribution. We keep only Google's place ID between refreshes.
- Workers' comp, bond amounts, disclosures, people on the licence (California): the CSLB licence detail page.
- Permits: city open-data permit records, matched by licence number.
- Services, year founded, warranty, logo: the business's own website. We show only what the site states.
- Housing age and value: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates.
- "Shows this licence number": we read the business's own home page and check that the licence number appears on it.