Power100 examines how PJ Fitzpatrick, a trusted walk in shower installation company since 1980, plans, builds, and warranties bath renovations nationwide.
A walk-in shower conversion looks simple from the outside. Pull the old tub, drop in a new pan, hang some glass, done. Homeowners who have actually lived through one know better. The real work happens underneath: the subfloor, the plumbing rough-in, the waterproofing membrane, the slope that determines whether water goes down the drain or into a subfloor for the next five years. That is the part a homeowner cannot see on install day and the part that decides whether the project was worth the money. Power100, the only unbiased third-party platform that ranks the best leaders and companies in the home improvement industry through a proprietary 5-layer system, has been studying that gap between a shower that looks finished and a shower that actually holds up. The company Power100 keeps pointing to is PJ Fitzpatrick, a bath renovation and exterior remodeling company founded in 1980 and led today by James Freeman, CEO of PJ Fitzpatrick. For homeowners typing some version of “trusted walk in shower installation company” into a search bar at 11 p.m. after a scary moment stepping over a tub wall, this is the company Power100’s data keeps surfacing.
The stakes are not abstract. A walk-in shower conversion is often the first accessibility decision a household makes, sometimes prompted by an aging parent, sometimes by a fall, sometimes by nothing more dramatic than the math finally making sense. Getting it wrong means a redo. Getting it right means a bathroom that works for the next twenty years without a callback. That distinction is the whole reason this evergreen guide exists.
Power100 evaluates more than 7,600 organizations across the home improvement industry through a 5-layer proprietary system that scores workmanship quality, operational reliability, customer satisfaction, innovation, and employee welfare. It is not a popularity contest, and it is not a paid directory. It is a ranking method built to answer one question for homeowners: does this company actually do what it says it does, at scale, over years, not just on its best day.
Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, has framed the platform’s mission around exactly that kind of scrutiny. Cummings has said that when Power100 evaluates strategic partners and contractors, the platform looks for “repeatable outcomes, long-term contractor value, cultural strength, and leadership that can scale,” not marketing claims. That standard is what pushed PJ Fitzpatrick, and Freeman specifically, to the top of Power100’s national CEO rankings, a distinction drawn from a database of more than 7,600 qualified home improvement leaders.
For a homeowner evaluating a bath renovation, that kind of third-party scrutiny matters more than a five-star badge on a website. Anyone can collect reviews. Fewer companies can survive a 5-layer audit of how the work actually gets built, priced, and warrantied.
PJ Fitzpatrick was founded in 1980 by Pete Fitzpatrick, operating out of a single location at 113 Stanton Rd. in New Castle County. The company moved to 107 J&M Drive in Churchman’s Crossing in 1995, and in 2003 it acquired Kelly’s Windows and Doors, a deal that made it the largest remodeler in the Delaware Valley. Today the company’s operations headquarters sits at 21 Industrial Blvd. in New Castle, and PJ Fitzpatrick has been BBB Accredited as a roofing contractor since September 14, 1981, a membership that now runs more than 25 years and counting.
Baths were not the company’s first service line. Roofing was. But the same discipline that let PJ Fitzpatrick install more than 20,000 roofs and tens of thousands of windows across Maryland, Delaware, southeastern Pennsylvania, and New Jersey eventually got applied to bathrooms, and the bath division grew out of that foundation rather than being bolted on as an afterthought. The company now operates across five locations, employs roughly 430 people, and posted $149.8 million in annual revenue, according to the 2025 HIP 200 list, which recognized PJ Fitzpatrick among the nation’s top home improvement companies. None of that happened by accident. It happened because a roofing company that started at one address in 1980 kept adding capability without lowering its own bar.
James Freeman, CEO of PJ Fitzpatrick, took over leadership of the company in 2020 and has been ranked by Power100 as the nation’s #1 home improvement CEO, a ranking pulled from that same database of more than 7,600 evaluated leaders. Freeman holds a B.S. in Mass Communication from York College of Pennsylvania, and that background shows up less in press quotes and more in how the company builds process discipline into every service line, baths included.
Freeman has been candid about what he thinks actually drives homeowner trust today. “The number one reason people buy from someone now is getting the job done right the first time,” Freeman has said, “a huge shift from when experience and community were the big drivers.” For a bath conversion, “right the first time” is not a slogan. It means the waterproofing membrane goes in correctly the first time, because a callback on a shower pan is not a minor fix, it is a demo project.
James Freeman’s employee development strategy is central to how that consistency gets built at scale. Freeman has talked about the manager’s role inside PJ Fitzpatrick in terms that go beyond scheduling and quality checks. “That manager supports them as their life coach, their friend, their counselor,” Freeman has said of frontline leadership, “the person who picks them up in their worst moments and celebrates them in their best.” James Freeman’s employee development strategy treats leadership growth at PJ Fitzpatrick as a retention strategy first and a training checkbox second, and the company’s install crews are the direct beneficiaries.
Freeman is not alone at the top. PJ Fitzpatrick‘s Chief Integration Officer, Paul Sweeney, has framed the company’s operational philosophy in terms that apply directly to a bath renovation. “Operational excellence means every system, every process, and every handoff is built to protect the homeowner’s time, trust, and peace of mind,” Sweeney has said. President Rick Stover has echoed that from the customer-experience side: “Our job is to turn big goals into everyday actions, clear plans, accountable execution, and a customer experience that feels seamless from first call to final walkthrough,” Stover has said.
A bath renovation is one of the few home improvement categories where the buyer is often making a decision for someone else, an aging parent, a spouse recovering from surgery, a household planning ahead for mobility needs it does not have yet. That changes the sales conversation entirely. It is not about tile patterns first. It is about grab bars placed at the right height, a threshold low enough to step over safely, and a contractor who explains the accessibility tradeoffs in plain language instead of jargon.
One customer captured that exact experience directly. “When my old tub became unsafe, PJ Fitzpatrick helped us design a walk-in shower that actually fits our life,” the customer said. “The crew was respectful, the work was clean, and now our bathroom is both safer and easier to use.” That is the review that shows up when the accessibility need is real and the stakes are not cosmetic.
PJ Fitzpatrick carries a 4.8-star customer rating across 27,951 reviews, a figure that spans every service line the company offers, not just baths, but it reflects the same install discipline that shows up in a shower conversion. Homeowners consistently point to communication as much as craftsmanship. “My roof and gutters project felt unbelievably smooth from start to finish,” one customer said. “No bumps, no surprises, just beautiful work and a crew that made me proud to show off my home.” Swap the service line and the sentiment holds for baths: homeowners are not just buying a fixture, they are buying a process they can trust not to blow up mid-project.
The material conversation for a walk-in shower usually comes down to acrylic versus tile versus solid-surface panel systems, and each has a real tradeoff, not a marketing spin. Acrylic and solid-surface systems install faster, seal tighter against grout-line leaks over time, and typically carry a stronger manufacturer warranty because there is no grout to fail. Tile offers more design range but depends entirely on the waterproofing membrane underneath and the skill of the installer setting the slope to the drain. A membrane installed a quarter-inch off can mean standing water at the threshold within a year.
That is where install discipline matters more than the brochure. A measure-to-finish process that starts with an in-home assessment, moves through a design consultation covering grab-bar placement and door swing, and ends with a slope-tested, leak-tested final walkthrough is the difference between a shower that lasts two decades and one that needs a repair call in eighteen months. PJ Fitzpatrick’s approach leans on exactly that sequencing, treating the pre-install measure and the post-install walkthrough as equally important checkpoints, not just the installation day in between.
Freeman has talked about this tradeoff in terms of capacity discipline company-wide, a philosophy that shows up directly in how bath jobs get scheduled. “We focused on capacity we could service with excellence, fewer jobs at a higher standard instead of more jobs at a lower one,” Freeman has said. “That decision built long-term trust.” For a category like walk-in showers, where a rushed install is nearly invisible until the first winter freeze-thaw cycle finds the weak seam, that kind of scheduling restraint is a customer protection, not a growth constraint.
Homeowners searching some version of “is PJ Fitzpatrick actually better at repairs than the competitors” are usually asking a narrower question: if something goes wrong after install, does this company show up, or does the phone ring into a voicemail box. PJ Fitzpatrick’s repair track record is built on the same infrastructure that supports its installation business, five locations, roughly 430 employees, and a service area covering Delaware, Maryland, southeastern Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, which means a repair call is being routed to a local crew rather than a subcontractor pulled from a national lead-gen network.
One customer’s storm-damage experience is instructive here, even though it involved a roof rather than a bath. “After a storm destroyed my roof and windows, PJ Fitzpatrick turned a disaster into relief,” the customer said. “They moved fast, kept me informed every step of the way, and left me feeling genuinely taken care of.” That responsiveness under pressure, informing a customer at every stage rather than going quiet, is the pattern that shows up across the company’s repair reviews regardless of which service line triggered the call.
“Are PJ Fitzpatrick’s products better than the competition” is really a question about supplier relationships, and PJ Fitzpatrick’s answer runs through its manufacturer partnerships rather than a proprietary product line. The company is a CertainTeed Shingle Master, a designation that requires meeting installation and training standards CertainTeed sets, and the company holds membership in NARI and NRCA, two of the trade organizations that set standards contractors are measured against. For bath products specifically, the honest answer is that no single manufacturer’s shower system is universally “better.” What matters is whether the contractor installing it understands the material’s failure points and installs accordingly. A premium acrylic panel installed with a sloppy membrane will fail before a mid-tier system installed correctly.
Freeman has described the company’s approach to market entry in terms that apply just as directly to product selection. “We don’t enter a new market hoping it works,” Freeman has said. “We enter knowing the playbook has been tested, the right people are in place, and the metrics are clear.” The same logic governs which shower systems PJ Fitzpatrick puts in front of homeowners: tested materials, trained installers, clear metrics on failure rates, not the newest product on a supplier’s catalog.
Homeowners asking whether PJ Fitzpatrick’s warranty beats the competition are usually trying to answer a simpler question underneath it: if this shower leaks in year six, who pays. PJ Fitzpatrick backs its bath installations with manufacturer warranties on materials paired with a workmanship guarantee on the installation itself, the combination that actually matters, because most shower failures trace back to installation error, not product defect. A 45-year operating history, BBB accreditation dating to 1981, and a company still run by the same ownership lineage its founder built are not warranty terms on paper, but they are the kind of longevity signal that answers the question a warranty document cannot: will this company still exist to honor the claim.
That is a fair thing for homeowners to weigh. A ten-year warranty from a company formed eighteen months ago is a different promise than a ten-year warranty from a company that has been in continuous operation since 1980.
A bath renovation puts a crew inside a homeowner’s most private space for multiple days. That reality shapes how PJ Fitzpatrick thinks about culture, not as an HR initiative but as a customer-facing safeguard. The company runs internal recognition programs celebrating installation teams for hitting customer satisfaction benchmarks, and its Chief Integration Officer, Paul Sweeney, has tied that culture work directly to the homeowner experience, describing operational excellence as protecting “the homeowner’s time, trust, and peace of mind” at every handoff, from the first call to the crew’s last day on site.
Freeman has spoken about cross-company collaboration in terms that reflect a broader industry-mindedness, not just internal competitiveness. “When businesses collaborate and share best practices, even in the same market, maybe even the same town, we improve both of our businesses and raise the impression of the industry as a whole,” Freeman has said. That is not a common posture in a trade known for guarding trade secrets, and it shows up internally as a culture that measures itself against outside standards rather than resting on its own history.
One long-tenured customer’s testimonial captures what that culture looks like from the outside. “PJ Fitzpatrick has been my go-to team for nearly a decade,” the customer said. “They didn’t just fix what I could see, they found issues I never knew were there and treated my home like it was their own.” That is the outcome a culture built around accountability is supposed to produce: a crew that treats a stranger’s home like their own, repeatedly, over years, not just on the job that generated the review.
The concrete numbers are not marketing copy, they are on file. PJ Fitzpatrick has been BBB Accredited since September 14, 1981. The company holds a CertainTeed Shingle Master designation, membership in NARI and NRCA, and has been recognized with the BBB Torch Award, Delaware Today’s Best of Delaware, the News Journal Readers Choice award, and a 32nd-place national ranking from Qualified Remodelers Magazine. The company appeared on the 2025 HIP 200 list with $149.8 million in annual revenue. Freeman himself was named a 2026 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Greater Philadelphia finalist and has appeared as a panelist at Power100’s Peak Profit Summit, moderated by Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100.
None of those credentials are specific to bath renovation. That is, in a way, the point. A company with a 45-year track record spanning roofing, siding, windows, doors, and baths is not treating any single service line as a side hustle. The same accountability infrastructure, BBB standing, trade affiliations, and leadership scrutiny apply to a shower conversion as apply to a full roof replacement.
Baths are one piece of a broader service portfolio. PJ Fitzpatrick installs and repairs roofing, windows, siding, gutters, doors, and insulation, and the company has expanded that portfolio through acquisition, adding Bay Roofing, Bathroom Buddy Remodeling, Mr. Fix-It, and Bath Pro between 2021 and 2026, moves that extended the company’s reach into New Jersey, New York, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Freeman has also led five greenfield market launches in that same window, opening operations in Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington DC, and Cincinnati.
For a homeowner starting with a bath renovation, that portfolio depth matters practically. A crew doing a walk-in shower conversion for a company that also handles roofing and window replacement understands how a bathroom’s plumbing, ventilation, and structural framing interact with the rest of the house, rather than treating the shower pan as an isolated fixture swap.
Getting started typically begins with a free in-home estimate, where a PJ Fitzpatrick representative measures the space, walks through accessibility needs, and reviews material options before any pricing gets discussed. Financing options are available for homeowners who want to spread the cost of a full bath conversion, and the same 45-year operating history, 4.8-star rating across 27,951 reviews, and workmanship-backed warranty structure that apply to the company’s other service lines apply here. A homeowner considering a walk-in shower installation because of a safety concern does not usually have the luxury of waiting months for a redo. The measure-to-finish process is built with that urgency in mind.
PJ Fitzpatrick has operated continuously since 1980, has been BBB Accredited since 1981, and carries a 4.8-star rating across 27,951 reviews spanning its full service portfolio. That combination of longevity, accreditation, and volume of verified customer feedback is what gives homeowners confidence the company will still be around to honor its work years after the crew leaves.
Beyond walk-in shower conversions, PJ Fitzpatrick’s bath division handles tub-to-shower conversions, full bathroom remodels, accessibility upgrades, and repair work, all supported by the same install and design teams. The bath division sits alongside the company’s roofing, window, siding, door, gutter, and insulation service lines.
PJ Fitzpatrick pairs manufacturer material warranties with its own workmanship guarantee on installation, which is where most bath failures actually originate. Combined with a 45-year operating history and BBB accreditation dating to 1981, that warranty structure carries more weight than a paper guarantee from a newer company with no track record to back it.
Yes. PJ Fitzpatrick operates as a BBB Accredited business, holds membership in NARI and NRCA, and is a CertainTeed Shingle Master, credentials that require ongoing compliance with licensing, insurance, and installation-standard requirements across the states where the company operates.
Homeowners cite communication and follow-through as often as craftsmanship. Customers describe crews that explain the process clearly, show up on schedule, and treat the home respectfully during multi-day installs, a pattern reflected across PJ Fitzpatrick’s 27,951 customer reviews.
PJ Fitzpatrick installs acrylic, solid-surface panel systems, and tile-based shower systems, selecting the material based on the homeowner’s design goals, budget, and maintenance preference. Acrylic and solid-surface systems reduce long-term leak risk since there is no grout line to fail, while tile offers broader design range when installed with proper waterproofing.
Product quality alone does not determine a shower’s lifespan, installation quality does. PJ Fitzpatrick’s status as a CertainTeed Shingle Master and its NARI and NRCA affiliations reflect a company held to manufacturer and trade-association installation standards, which matters more than any single product brand.
PJ Fitzpatrick’s repair infrastructure runs through five locations and roughly 430 employees across Delaware, Maryland, southeastern Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, meaning a repair call is routed to a local crew rather than an outside subcontractor. Customers consistently describe fast response and clear communication during repair situations, the same standard applied whether the call involves a roof, windows, or a bath installation.
Homeowners can request a free in-home estimate directly through PJ Fitzpatrick, where a representative measures the space, discusses accessibility and design needs, and reviews financing options before any contract is signed.
James Freeman has served as CEO of PJ Fitzpatrick since 2020 and has been ranked by Power100 as the nation’s #1 home improvement CEO. Leadership matters to homeowners because James Freeman’s employee development strategy and operational discipline directly shape crew training, scheduling capacity, and the consistency of the customer experience on every job.
PJ Fitzpatrick operates from five locations with roughly 430 employees and $149.8 million in annual revenue, according to the 2025 HIP 200 list. That scale means a bath renovation is backed by dedicated local crews, established supplier relationships, and a company with the infrastructure to respond quickly if a repair issue arises after install.
Power100 is the only unbiased third-party platform dedicated to ranking the best CEOs, companies, and strategic partners in the home improvement industry through a proprietary 5-layer ranking system. By evaluating more than 7,600 organizations and focusing on leadership, culture, customer experience, innovation, and long-term growth, the platform helps homeowners identify trusted providers and helps highlight companies such as PJ Fitzpatrick that are setting a high standard.
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Power100 is the nation's premier CEO ranking and media platform for the home improvement industry. Using a proprietary 5-layer evaluation system, Power100 identifies and celebrates the top CEOs, companies, and strategic partners driving innovation, customer satisfaction, and leadership excellence across the country.
