Judging rules

The rules every entry and every judge follows. By entering, you agree to them.

Eligibility

Entrants must be licensed (where their trade requires it) and insured contractors operating in the United States.
Each entry covers one project in one category, finished within the 24 months before the entry date.
The work must have been done by the entrant’s own company or crews it directly managed.
The homeowner must agree to be contacted and to have photos published without their address.

Photos must be real and unedited beyond basic cropping, rotation, and brightness.
No logos, watermarks, or yard signs while the entry is judged.
No house numbers, license plates, or homeowner faces.
Judges may disqualify entries with signs of AI generation or heavy retouching.

Staff screen every entry for completeness. Incomplete entries get 14 days to fix what’s missing.
We contact the homeowner with a short survey. No response after two reminders, or a poor rating, ends the entry.
We confirm the license is active and the insurance certificate is current.
At least two judges with experience in the trade score each entry out of 100, without seeing the company name. If their totals differ by more than 15 points, a third judge scores it and the outlier is dropped.
Entries scoring 80 or more earn the Award of Excellence. The highest score in each category and region is named Project of the Year.

Judges disclose any business or personal connection to an entrant and step aside from that entry.
Judges never score a direct competitor in their own market.
Entry fees never affect scores.

Winners may display the badge with the category and year shown.
Each badge has a unique ID that resolves on our Verify page.
We may revoke an award if an entry is found to be false or misleading, and the badge ID will no longer verify.

Questions about these rules? Contact us.