Patriot Pools

Twelve permitted in-ground pool projects in Marshfield and Hingham between 2012 and 2019 — that is the shape of Patriot Pools, a Marshfield outfit that builds backyard pools and looks after them afterwards. BuildZoom lists Eric Steuernagle and Mark Shields as the owners, and it is Mark's name that keeps surfacing in what customers wrote. What those customers wrote is uniformly warm, and it is also a few years old. A homeowner writing in 2021 described a saltwater in-ground pool put in at Scituate, with the patio done by the same crew, and said the town inspector wanted photographs of the finished job as an example of how it should be done. In 2023 another customer had a pool light replaced and said the backyard was looking like a resort. Further back, a 2017 reviewer called Mark Shields dependable and fairly priced, and a 2015 one said the pool turned out well. Four written accounts across Google and BuildZoom over eight years, every one of them positive — and the newest is from July 2023. The thing to settle before you call is the paperwork. The Massachusetts contractor registry lists the company's home improvement contractor registration, number 195366, as expired; BuildZoom puts that expiry at 24 April 2021 and shows a second registration, 163634, as inactive too. For pool construction and the deck and patio work that travels with it, that is worth raising directly — ask whether the registration has been renewed since, and get the current number. If you want a small Marshfield-area pool builder whose finished jobs people photographed and wrote about, Patriot Pools has that history behind it. Go in knowing the written trail is thin — five Google ratings and two on BuildZoom — and mostly a few years old, so confirm current registration and insurance, and check they are still taking the kind of work you have in mind.