Our Standards for Writing Plumbing Product Reviews

You need transparency to fully trust our product reviews, so here it is. The Internet is flooded with “pay to play” reviews, where manufacturers pay for product placement and positive press. In order to make the best possible decision for your next water heater, smart water monitor or reverse osmosis system, you need proof the review you’re reading is legitimate.

So what makes a Mother plumbing product review expert-driven and trustworthy?

Learn our standards for what makes it into a Mother product review: how we select devices to review, whose opinions we trust, and how we benefit (and how we don’t).

Why We Write Plumbing Product Reviews 

We’re a plumbing service. We write reviews so you’ll hire us to install them in your home. 

When we’re right about a product, we gain customers, trust and visibility.

When we’re wrong, it doesn’t just hurt our reputation. It costs us call backs, warranty work, and wasted labor hours.

We pay for bad products twice: once when we install them, and again when we rip them out for underperforming. When our customers avoid bad products and choose the best ones, everybody wins.

It’s in our best interest to write great reviews and recommend the best plumbing products possible. It keeps our customers happy, their homes efficient, and saves everyone time.

There’s probably a lot of people outside our market who benefit from these reviews- and there’s certainly no harm in that.

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How We Choose Plumbing Products to Review

Mother’s goal in writing product reviews is simple: determine the best product for most homeowners, and tell you why.

Here are the primary factors we consider when selecting products:

1. Performance. We review products that make your life better and offer the best long-term bang for your buck. If they don’t, we’ll tell you why.
2. Availability. The best device in the world is no good if you can’t easily get it from a licensed plumber, big box store or online retailer.
3. Brand Legacy. We can’t tell you how a product will perform in 5 years if its manufacturer’s only existed for two. A history of quality matters.

Ultimately, we avoid writing bad reviews. We’d rather spend our time helping you decide between the best options for your home than bash a product you’ll never buy. 

Experts Matter. Here’s How We Find Ours

We turn to our team of Master Plumbers for their unfiltered opinions. They train on, install, repair and maintain the products we review weekly, both in the office and in our customers’ homes.

Steven Smith is our Responsible Master Plumber, and our first source for reviews. With over 15 years as a residential service plumber, Steven holds the highest accreditation that a plumber can hold. His depth of hands-on experience with today’s top brands- Rinnai, Phyn, Toto, Navien, Kohler, Moen and more- makes him an authority.

We bolster our reviews with the expertise of professionals who matter. When homeowners can gain insurance benefits from smart water monitors, we interview insurance experts. When we review evolving smart tech, we reach out to the engineers who helped develop and build it.

We Don’t Write Paid Reviews, Period.

As a plumbing service, we maintain relationships with some of the brands we review. 

But there’s a clear line between our business relationships and our review standards. 

We work closely with manufacturers whose products we like. We’re certified by many of them to install and repair their devices, and we work directly with sales representatives from these brands to source and sell products to our customers.

We don’t take money from these individuals to write nice things about their products. 

We also don’t make affiliate marketing revenue off reviews. We don’t get kickbacks from links to purchase products on Amazon, Home Depot or other retail sites. 

Mother’s Product Reviews and Rankings

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