How we score demolition contractors in Ontario

The Ontario Excavation & Demolition Directory currently scores 460 demolition contractor businesses across the province. Every score comes from a fixed rubric applied to public review data and business records. Nobody at the directory adjusts a number because a business asks nicely, and nobody pays their way to a higher score. This page explains what goes into the composite score, why we weight it the way we do, and where the method runs into honest limits.

What goes into the composite score

Each business gets a score out of 100, built from five measured signals. We list them here from heaviest to lightest.

• Sentiment, 28%. This is a synthesis of what recent reviews actually say, the praise and the complaints, not just whether they're positive or negative on average.
• Rating, 26%. The business's aggregate star rating on Google.
• Volume, 20%. How many reviews a business has, scaled logarithmically so that a contractor with 8 reviews doesn't get treated the same as one with 400.
• Recency, 10%. How recently customers left reviews, since a demolition crew's current crew, equipment, and site practices matter more than what happened five years ago.
• Completeness, 16%. Whether the listing has a phone number, website, hours, and address on file, the basic information you need to actually reach and vet a contractor.

Why sentiment carries the most weight

A star average can hide a lot. Two demolition contractors can both sit at 4.3 stars while one has a string of recent reviews complaining about debris left on site, missed permit steps, or trucks blocking a neighbor's driveway for days, and the other doesn't. The stars alone won't tell you that. Reading what recent reviews actually describe, and looking for a pattern rather than a single bad day, is the only way to catch it before you hire. That's why sentiment is weighted heaviest in our rubric, ahead of the raw star rating itself.

Why the other signals matter for hiring a demolition contractor

Rating still matters because it's the broadest, most recognizable signal customers already use, and it correlates with sentiment often enough to serve as a check. Volume matters because a 5-star average built on three reviews is a weak signal for a job involving heavy equipment, site safety, and disposal logistics, so we discount small samples with a log scale rather than treat them as equivalent to a large, established track record. Recency matters because demolition work depends on current crews, current equipment, and current subcontractor relationships, all of which change. Completeness matters in a practical way: a contractor without a listed phone number, address, or hours is harder to verify and harder to reach when you need a quote or a callback.

The honest limits

Businesses with few recent reviews produce a low-confidence score, and we label those listings as such rather than presenting them with false certainty. We don't republish reviews wholesale; we synthesize themes from them and link out to the Google listing itself so you can read the original source and form your own view. Scores are computed from this rubric and this data only. When a paid placement exists anywhere on the site, it is always labelled clearly, and it never changes a business's score. If any list on this site has picks or ordering that were editor-reviewed rather than purely score-driven, that is disclosed on the page itself, for example our excavation and site clearing rankings.

Who publishes this and who maintains it

This directory is published by Ontario Excavation & Demolition Directory, which launched in 2026 to give property owners a way to find demolition and excavation contractors with transparent pricing and a verifiable track record, instead of scattered ads and overstated claims. Listings are built from published review data and public business records, so rankings are earned by performance, not bought. The database refreshes monthly, and individual listings carry a "last verified" stamp so you can see when a contractor's information was last checked. Editorial oversight of the rankings is handled by Sofia Vogel, Senior Editor. You can reach the publisher through the contact form at ontario-excavation-demolition.ca or by emailing ontariodirectorypartners@gmail.com. To browse the full directory, start from the home page.