American Pool Service

Forty-three years of digging gunite pools into North Shore backyards, and almost nothing written about it anywhere. American Pool Service works out of 12 Mitchell Road in Ipswich. Its BBB profile puts the start date at February 1983, incorporation in 1990, ten employees, and John MacDougall as president. The company says it builds, renovates and maintains gunite and vinyl-liner inground pools for both residential and commercial clients across Massachusetts' North Shore and into southern New Hampshire, and that it belongs to the Association of Pool and Spa Professionals. The customer history is one comment. A homeowner writing in May 2025 gave five stars on Google — "Everyone was so friendly and they did an amazing job" — and Google's average sits at 5 across two ratings total. Its Houzz page carries none. Its BBB grade is A+, though the company is not BBB accredited. One thing to settle before you sign anything: Massachusetts home improvement contractor registration 166013, held under the near-identical name American Pool Serivces, Inc., comes back expired in the state registry. For a company whose work includes new pool construction and full renovations, ask directly whether that registration has been renewed and get the current number and expiry in writing. This is the shop for a homeowner who wants a long-established local pool builder and is willing to do the checking themselves — the paper trail from past customers is too thin to lean on. Confirm the registration and insurance, then ask for addresses of gunite jobs they finished in the last couple of seasons and go look at them.