Editorial policy

This policy is the standard the Heater Handbook editorial team uses for every guide. The byline is the team, not a named technician. The site does not invent authors, licenses, years of experience, or customer reviews. A page earns trust by showing the source of a number and by stopping a procedure where a homeowner should stop.

What a guide is allowed to be

Each guide has one job. The page about a dripping relief valve explains closed plumbing systems and failed valves. The page about testing a relief valve explains the lever, the scald risk of the test, and the manufacturers who warn that a test can start a drip. Neither page repeats the other’s full procedure. The maintenance section’s overview is a calendar with links, not a second copy of the flush steps.

A guide may include a worked example, a table, or a checklist when a reader would otherwise have to invent the arithmetic. Recovery rate, tankless gallons per minute, and the Department of Energy peak-hour worksheet are calculations, so the pages show the formula and a labeled example. The example uses round efficiencies and says they are not the uniform energy factor of a specific model.

A guide may not include filler introductions, a restatement of the headline in a conclusion, or a list of “benefits of hot water.” If a section does not help someone identify a part, choose a size, avoid an injury, or read a label, it does not belong.

Sources

Factual claims that can be checked are tied to a public document. The usual set:

• U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Saver, including the consumer comparison “Which Water Heater Is Right for You?” and the Energy Saver sizing guide’s peak-hour worksheet and tankless flow example.
• The Department of Energy building-technologies fact sheet on water heating, for the long-standing statement that domestic water heating accounts for a large share of household energy use.
• ENERGY STAR pages on water heaters, heat-pump installation cost, product criteria, and the historical tax-credit page.
• The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission publication on tap-water scalds, for burn times and the 120°F recommendation.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention material on Legionella growth in warm water, used carefully and not as medical advice.
• The Internal Revenue Service, for the energy efficient home improvement credit and the 2025 law that ended it for property placed in service after December 31, 2025.
• International Code Council notes and the widely adopted International Residential Code provisions on relief valves and garage installation, described as orientation because local amendments control.
• Manufacturer installation and service literature, for clearances, lighting instructions, and the fact that error codes are model-specific. The site does not paste a brand’s code chart. Codes change with the control board, and a copied chart is both a copyright problem and a wrong part.

When two good sources disagree, the guide quotes the disagreement. Heat-pump air-volume guidance is the standing example: Department of Energy consumer language has required on the order of 1,000 cubic feet, while ENERGY STAR has described a smaller minimum and pointed installers back to the model specification. The page reports both.

The Code of Federal Regulations, Part 430, is the pointer for the uniform energy factor test. Bin edges are described and the reader is sent to the current regulation and the ENERGY STAR criteria page, because a threshold can be amended.

Costs, credits, and efficiency claims

Any dollar figure is a typical range, with the publisher and the year in the sentence. HomeAdvisor’s 2025 replacement ranges, Angi’s 2026 tankless and heat-pump ranges, and ENERGY STAR’s heat-pump equipment and labor ranges do not match each other. The cost guide says that they do not match, and why: equipment versus installed price, integrated versus split heat pumps, and what the survey included. The guide does not average them into a false “true price.”

Operating-cost claims that come from the Department of Energy, such as an annual savings figure for an ENERGY STAR tankless or heat pump model, are attributed and described as that article’s estimate under that article’s fuel-price assumptions. Readers are told to multiply the energy use on their own EnergyGuide label by their own marginal rate.

Tax credits are written from the IRS page, not from a contractor’s advertisement. As of this edition, a heat pump water heater placed in service after December 31, 2025 is outside the federal 25C credit. A unit placed in service earlier may still be a filing question for that tax year. State and utility rebates are not catalogued, because they change by zip code. The page tells the reader to check the local program rather than inventing a rebate amount.

Safety editing

A procedure that involves gas piping, venting, burner removal, manifold-pressure adjustment, live electrical parts, panel work, or refrigerant is not written as a homeowner project. The guide may explain what a technician is measuring, so the reader can understand a diagnosis, without giving the adjustment steps.

Lighting a standing pilot is described as “follow the sticker on the heater, once,” not as a universal sequence that could contradict the sticker. If the pilot will not stay, the next step is service.

Relief valves are never capped. Tank-shell leaks are never repaired with sealant. Electric elements are never energized in a dry tank. Those three sentences are not negotiable for tone.

Scald guidance keeps the CPSC times intact and does not soften “about six seconds at 140°F” into “a bit hot.” The Legionella tradeoff is explained, including mixing valves, and then handed to a clinician and a plumber for anyone at higher risk.

Model years and brands

Brands are named when the difference matters: standing pilot versus hot-surface ignition, atmospheric vent versus sealed combustion, magnesium versus aluminum anodes, condensing versus non-condensing vent materials. They are not named in a ranking. A failure that is common on one control is not assigned to every control. Tankless error codes are grouped by symptom because a two-digit code on one brand is a different fault on another, and the same brand reuses numbers across generations.

Corrections and dates

Each guide carries a published date and an updated date. A correction that changes a factual claim updates the date. A typographic fix may not. Readers can send corrections as described on the contact page. The team would rather narrow a claim than defend a smooth sentence.

Advertising and independence

This version sells nothing. There are no affiliate links. The AdSense account meta tag and ads.txt file are present so the site can be reviewed, and the ad script is commented out so it does not run before approval. If ads are enabled later, they will be network ads, not a placement bought by a water-heater brand, and they will not sit inside a procedure as a fake “recommended unit.” The privacy policy will be updated when the script is actually loaded.

Staff of manufacturers, contractors, and agencies are welcome to correct a description of their own document. They do not get a product mention in exchange. Guest posts and paid links are refused.

What will not be published

The desk will not publish a scare piece that treats every older tank as an imminent explosion, a listicle of unnamed “top heaters,” a fake quotation from a homeowner, a cost figure with no source, or a DIY gas-line or electrical-panel procedure. It will not publish medical instructions for a burn beyond “cool the burn and get medical care.” It will not copy a manufacturer’s manual into a page.

Diagrams are original drawings, not photographs of people and not installation plans. What each one shows and what it leaves out is the image credits page.

The about page is the shorter public description of the same rules. The disclaimer is the legal boundary.