Every guide on WaterTreatGuide is held to the same rules. This page sets them out in enough detail that you can hold us to them too — including what to do when we get something wrong.
Rule 1 — Priced from real quotes
Cost figures come from installer quotes, current retail pricing at national chains, and published rate sheets. They do not come from manufacturer brochures, which quote equipment and quietly omit the half of the job that costs money — the bypass loop, the drain line, the electrical outlet, the permit, the labour.
- Every cost article states when its prices were last checked. A water treatment price with no date on it is not information.
- Figures are rounded to the nearest $50. Quoting an installed softener at $2,847 would imply a precision that does not exist.
- Where prices vary by region — and installation labour varies enormously — we publish the range and explain what moves you to one end of it.
- We separate equipment, installation and ten-year running costs, because the cheapest of the three at purchase is frequently the most expensive over a decade.
Rule 2 — Sizing math shown
Any recommendation that depends on your water — grain capacity, service flow rate, membrane output, tank volume, drain field loading — is published with the formula and a worked example. You should be able to rerun the calculation with your own numbers and get your own answer, rather than trusting ours.
That also means stating the assumptions out loud: how many people in the household, how many gallons a day, what hardness in grains per gallon, what iron in parts per million. Change an assumption and the answer changes; a guide that hides its assumptions is selling you a conclusion. Where a calculation needs data about your specific supply, we tell you to get it from your utility’s annual water quality report or a certified lab — never from a free in-home test run by a company that would like to sell you the equipment.
Rule 3 — Nothing is ranked for money
No manufacturer, dealer or installer pays for placement, a rating or a mention. We do not accept sponsored posts, paid guest articles, paid link insertions, or “product review” arrangements. We take no referral or finder’s fees from installers.
The site is funded by display advertising, which is sold independently of the editorial work: an advertiser can buy space beside an article, never a conclusion inside one. If a specific page ever carries an affiliate arrangement, it will be disclosed in plain language at the top of that page, before the content it affects.
The practical test of this rule is simple: when a $600 system does the job a $3,000 quote was written for, the article says so.
Sources, and how we weigh them
Not all sources deserve equal weight. Ours are ranked roughly like this:
- Dated installer quotes and retail prices — what the work actually costs, this year.
- Public standards and regulation — NSF/ANSI certifications, EPA guidance and drinking water regulations, state and local plumbing code.
- Manufacturer specification sheets — trusted for specifications, never for prices or for comparative claims about competitors.
- Vendor marketing material — used as evidence of what is being claimed, never as evidence that the claim is true.
Sources are cited in the article at the point where the number appears, not collected in a decorative list at the bottom.
How a guide gets written
We start from a real question people ask, work out what it would take to answer it honestly, then collect the data before writing a word of the answer — quotes, specifications, standards, running-cost figures. The draft is built around that data. Nothing is published without the editor going through every figure in it.
Our use of AI
We’d rather say this plainly than have you wonder. AI tools assist with drafting and editing on this site — structuring an outline, tightening prose, catching inconsistencies. They are not used to source facts, invent prices, or generate a recommendation.
Every number, formula and verdict is checked by the editor against the underlying source before publication, and the editor is accountable for it. Where a guide’s judgement comes from experience on job sites rather than from a document, that experience is a person’s, not a model’s.
Updates and corrections
Cost guides are re-checked when market prices move, and every article carries its last update date. A re-check can change a number without changing the conclusion; when it changes the conclusion, we say what changed and why.
If you find an error — a stale price, a wrong formula, an assumption that doesn’t hold — tell us through the Contact page, with the guide and the figure concerned. Verified corrections are applied and the update date changed. On substantive fixes we note what was corrected rather than silently rewriting history, because a site that quietly edits its past numbers cannot ask you to trust its present ones.
What we are not
We are not a licensed plumbing contractor in your state, we are not a testing laboratory, and a guide is not a site visit. Use our numbers to interrogate a quote and to size a system intelligently — then confirm the final specification with the licensed professional who will stand behind the installation, and check your local code, which varies more than anyone expects.
Who is responsible
Editorial responsibility for this site rests with Chriss R. — see the About page for his background and, just as importantly, the limits of it. The site is published by NET STUDIO LLC; publisher and hosting details are on the Legal Notice page.