Mass Pools, Inc.

Nearly every review of Mass Pools is really a review of one man. James Keating has run this Cambridge business as a sole proprietorship since 2010, with four people on the books, and customers writing across more than a decade name him personally — the quote, the visit, the fix. The work they describe is equipment, not just skimming. In a June 2025 review a homeowner said he re-plumbed their pool, hooked up a new heater and swapped old flex tubing for hard PVC, and reported much better flow afterwards. In July 2024 another had a solar heater plumbed into an inground filter and the panel mounted on a shed roof. A June 2024 customer had a DE filter quoted and scheduled remotely, then found the job finished as they pulled into the driveway. When a pump failed in May 2024, a homeowner wrote that other companies were quoting two-month waits in peak opening season and Mass Pools booked them within days. The hours get mentioned too. A May 2025 reviewer described him arriving after 7pm and working until 9:30 to finish, and in a 2013 review a customer losing three or four inches of water every few days said he found a second leak on the spot and went out for the parts. The complaints run the other way, and they are about reliability rather than craft. In an October 2023 one-star review a customer wrote "BUYER BEWARE", said the company is "Only good at opening/closing" and described him as "Always late, comes by when he feels like it." A year earlier, in October 2022, a customer of several years said they called more than ten times that season for service and never got a call back. A 2016 liner replacement, reviewed at 1.5 stars, ended with wrinkles that would not settle, the pool drained, fans running for days and unexpected water and electric bills. Against that, a customer who had posted a problem returned in August 2025 to say James contacted them immediately and put it right. That split is visible in the scores. HomeAdvisor shows 4.9 from 63 ratings and Thumbtack 4.8 from 13, while Google sits at 4.5 from 22 — the two one-star Google reviews are most of the difference. Its BBB file carries an A+ grade, and BBB states just as plainly that the business is not accredited. Most of the written record is also old: 28 of the 41 reviews predate 2021, and nothing has been written since August 2025. A sound call for a discrete job — a pump, a heater, a liner, a leak — where the owner showing up himself is the whole point. If what you want is weekly maintenance you can set a watch by, ask directly how the season is staffed and get your opening and closing dates in writing before you book.