Editorial policy

Sourcing standards

1. Every numeric claim carries a source or shows its arithmetic. No exceptions. If a number appears on this site, you can either click through to who published it or watch it being computed on the page.
2. Primary sources first. Government and standards bodies, then manufacturer documentation, then retail listings, in that order of preference — and the tier is labeled wherever it matters.
3. Manufacturer claims are always attributed as manufacturer claims. “Sun2Solar states up to 15 degrees”, never “this cover gains 15 degrees”. The difference is the whole of this site’s value.
4. Every cited URL is fetched, and must resolve. If a source goes dead we re-source the claim or remove it. We do not leave dead citations, and where an important source has gone offline we say so rather than quietly linking an archive as though it were live.
5. Unverifiable figures are omitted, not softened. “We could not verify this” beats a plausible-sounding guess, every time.
6. Sources are visible on the page, in the text and in a sources block, not hidden in markup.

What will never appear on this site

• A testing claim. We have not tested any of this equipment. Saying otherwise would be a fabrication and, for an affiliate publisher, an FTC problem.
• An invented credential. No certifications, no panel of experts, no trade qualifications, and no tenure that does not exist.
• A fabricated review or testimonial. There are no customer quotes on this site because there are no customers — it is a publisher, not a business with clients. Inventing some to fill a layout would be indefensible.
• A fabricated price, rating or specification. Prices come from a live data layer or the button says “check price”. Specifications come from a named source or the page says the manufacturer publishes none.
• A star rating we made up. We have no first-party ratings, and we will not borrow a retailer’s. There is no aggregate rating markup anywhere on this site.
• A bare “up to X degrees”. Every temperature claim here names which of three quantities it is, states its conditions, and cites its source.

Corrections

Errors are fixed and date-stamped where you can see them, not edited quietly. A silent edit turns a mistake into a thing that never happened, which on a site asking you to check its arithmetic is exactly the wrong instinct.

When something is reported:

1. We check it against the source.
2. If it is wrong, the page is corrected and its last updated date moves.
3. Where the correction changes a conclusion rather than a detail, the page says what changed and when.

To report one: info@swimandsolar.com. Telling us which page and what you think the number should be gets it fixed fastest.

Update cadence

• Quarterly: every roundup re-checked — products still available, specifications unchanged, links resolving.
• Annually, in winter: every physics figure re-verified and every source URL re-checked, and cost tables refreshed against current fuel prices before the spring season.
• Pre-season, February to March: a full pass over the cost pages. This is when people arrive looking for these answers.
• When a product is discontinued: removed or replaced within 30 days, and the change noted.
• When a cited source moves or dies: re-sourced or the claim comes out.

What would make us drop a recommendation

• The product is discontinued or unavailable.
• A published specification we relied on turns out to be wrong, or is withdrawn.
• A pattern of failures emerges in what verified purchasers report, substantial enough that our published-spec analysis is no longer the right basis for a recommendation.
• A better product exists at the same price.

What would not make us drop one: a change in commission rate, a request from a manufacturer, or the arrival of a more expensive alternative.

Independence

No advertiser, retailer or affiliate program has any editorial input here. None has ever reviewed a draft, requested a change, or been shown a page before publication. There is no arrangement under which that could happen.

How the site is funded is set out in full on the disclosure page, and the method behind every number is on the methodology page.