North Shore Pool & Spa

North Shore Pool & Spa is a Wakefield fixture — the company says it's served the area since 1974, and owner Chris Callanan, a lifelong Wakefield resident, bought the business in 1987 after years in the retail florist trade. It's part retail counter, part service company: water testing, pool and spa chemicals, equipment sales, and seasonal opening/closing and repair calls, run out of the same Albion Street shop for decades. The Better Business Bureau has it accredited with an A+ rating since 2012, and its service manager, Darren Emery, has been there since 1988. The 17 reviews on file, running from 2021 through this year, keep returning to the same theme: fast, no-pressure help at the counter. In a 2022 review, a customer walked in with a decade-old pool vacuum expecting a weeks-long wait and walked out with it fixed in 40 minutes. In a 2023 review, someone who couldn't find pool salt anywhere else during a shortage got it there at a fair price. Multiple reviews from 2025 specifically credit the staff — Chris among them — for not pushing products customers don't need, a contrast some reviewers draw explicitly with other pool stores in the area. Not every visit has gone smoothly. In a 2023 review, a customer described the owner as rude and said he wouldn't test their water for free. In a 2022 review, a customer said they were billed for a pool-opening visit despite specific arrangements to be told when the crew arrived, and disputed that anyone actually came to the door. A separate 2022 review flagged a $33.95 net as overpriced, while still praising the front-of-store service. Worth noting too: Houzz lists the shop as an authorized Caldera Spas dealer, but the company's own website names SpaEase as its hot tub line instead — worth clarifying which brand you'd actually be buying before ordering a spa. For routine pool and spa supplies, water testing, and seasonal service, North Shore Pool & Spa has a long track record and an A+ BBB file behind it — just confirm billing and scheduling details directly for a job like a pool opening, given the account above.