1. Who we are
Chesapeake Backyard is a backyard project advisory and referral service operated by Lee Orders as a sole proprietorship in Baltimore, Maryland. You can reach us at hello@chesapeakebackyard.com or (202) 445-7298. In this policy, "we," "us," and "our" mean Chesapeake Backyard.
We are not a pool contractor. We do not build, install, renovate, or service pools, and we are not licensed by the Maryland Home Improvement Commission. We introduce homeowners to licensed Maryland pool builders.
2. How we make money, in plain terms
Our service is free to homeowners. Pool builders pay us a fee when we send them your quote request. That means we have a financial interest in connecting you with a builder. We disclose this here, in our Terms of Service, and on our quote form so you can weigh it for yourself.
3. Information we collect
Partial quote requests (Step 1)
Our homepage quote form has two steps. When you finish Step 1 and click through to Step 2, your ZIP code and pool type are transmitted to us at that moment — before you reach the consent checkbox and before you submit the completed form. We use these partial submissions to understand where people stop filling out the form and which areas and pool types draw interest.
Step 1 does not ask for your name, phone number, or email address, so a partial submission does not by itself identify you. We do not send partial submissions to pool builders, and they do not trigger any call, text, or email to you. If you do not want us to receive your ZIP code and pool type, do not click through to Step 2.
Completed quote requests (Step 2)
When you submit a completed pool quote request, we collect:
- Your name, phone number, and email address
- Your ZIP code and Maryland county
- The pool type, budget range, and timeline you select
- Whether you own the home, whether your backyard has equipment access, and whether you may want financing
- Any project notes you choose to write
- Whether you checked the consent box, and the date and time you submitted
Pool Cost Guide requests
If you request the Maryland Pool Cost Guide, we collect your name, email address, county, and timeline.
Builder partner applications
If you apply on our For Pool Builders page, we collect your company name, contact name, phone number, email address, MHIC license number, years in business, monthly capacity, counties served, pool types installed, your confirmation that you carry insurance and licensing, and any message you write. This is business contact information, and we treat it as such.
Information collected automatically
With each submission we also record the page URL you submitted from, your browser's user agent string, and a timestamp. We do not use advertising cookies or third-party analytics trackers on this site at this time. If that changes, we will update this policy before turning them on.
4. How we use your information
- To confirm your request and contact you about it
- To match you with up to three pool builders who serve your county and install your pool type
- To send your request to those builders so they can prepare quotes and contact you
- To internally rank and prioritize requests so we respond to time-sensitive projects first
- To send you the Maryland Pool Cost Guide if you requested it
- To improve our forms, our service areas, and our builder network
- To comply with the law and to enforce our Terms of Service
5. Who we share your information with
Pool builders
This is the disclosure that matters most. When you submit a completed quote request and check the consent box, we share your name, phone number, email address, ZIP code, county, pool type, budget range, timeline, homeowner status, backyard access, whether you may want financing, and your project notes with no more than three independent Maryland pool builders. Those builders will contact you by phone, text message, and email to discuss your project and provide quotes.
The builders we match you with are independent businesses. They are not our employees, agents, or affiliates. Once we send them your information, they control it and their own privacy practices apply to it — not this policy. We cannot delete your information from a builder's systems, and we cannot stop a builder from contacting you on our own. To stop a specific builder from contacting you, tell that builder directly, and tell us as well so we can flag it.
We will tell you which builders received your request. If you want the list before we send anything, call us at (202) 445-7298 or email us and we will hold your request until you approve the list.
Service providers
We use Google LLC to receive and store submissions. Specifically, this site posts your form submission to a Google Apps Script web application, which writes it to a Google Sheets spreadsheet in our Google account and emails a copy to us through Google's mail service. Google processes this data on our behalf under its own terms and security practices. Our website hosting provider also processes ordinary server request data.
Legal and business transfers
We may disclose information if required by law, subpoena, or legal process, or to protect our rights, our users, or the public. If our business is sold or merged, information we hold may transfer as part of that transaction.
What we do not do
We do not sell your information to data brokers, list brokers, or marketing aggregators, and we do not share it with lenders, insurers, or other advertisers. Sharing with matched pool builders, as described above, is the only third-party sharing we do for money.
6. Calls, texts, and emails
When you check the consent box on our quote form, you are giving written permission for Chesapeake Backyard and the specific pool builders we match you with to contact you at the phone number you provide — including by automatic telephone dialing system, prerecorded or artificial voice, and SMS text message. Message and data rates may apply. Consent is not a condition of purchasing anything.
You can revoke consent at any time and by any reasonable means: reply STOP to a text, tell a caller to stop calling, or email hello@chesapeakebackyard.com with the word "revoke." Revoking consent with us stops our contact and stops us from sending your request to additional builders. Builders who already received your request are separate businesses, so revoke with them directly as well.
7. How long we keep your information
We keep completed quote requests for three years so we can resolve disputes, honor our guarantees, and show that consent was given — consent records in particular are worth keeping for the full period. We keep partial Step 1 submissions for 12 months. We keep builder applications for as long as the builder is in our network and for three years afterward. You can ask us to delete your information sooner; see below.
8. Your choices
- Access. Ask us what we hold about you and we will tell you.
- Correction. Ask us to fix anything inaccurate.
- Deletion. Ask us to delete your information from our records. We will delete it from our spreadsheet and email, but we cannot delete it from a builder who already received it.
- Stop contact. Ask us to stop contacting you and to stop sending your request to builders.
- Opt out of matching. Ask us not to share your request with any builder at all — we will simply answer your questions ourselves.
Email hello@chesapeakebackyard.com or call (202) 445-7298. We respond within 30 days. We will not charge you or treat you differently for exercising any of these choices.
9. Security
This site is served over HTTPS, and submissions travel encrypted to Google's servers. Access to our lead spreadsheet and email is limited to people who need it to run the business and is protected by account passwords and two-factor authentication. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
10. Children
This site is intended for adults who own residential property. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe a minor has submitted information to us, email us and we will delete it.
11. Other sites
Our site may link to builders' websites and other third-party sites. We are not responsible for their content or their privacy practices. Read their policies before giving them information.
12. Changes to this policy
If we change this policy, we will post the updated version here and change the "Last updated" date. If the change materially affects how we share your information, we will say so clearly at the top of this page.
13. Contact us
Chesapeake Backyard
Lee Orders, sole proprietor
Baltimore, Maryland
hello@chesapeakebackyard.com
(202) 445-7298