Editorial policy

How this site decides what to publish, how figures are checked, and what happens when we get something wrong.

What we cover

Installed prices for residential heating, cooling and hot water systems in the United States: heat pumps, air conditioning, furnaces and boilers, water heaters, ductwork and insulation, plus repair costs and brand comparisons. We do not cover commercial systems, and we do not publish installation instructions for work that requires a license.

Where figures come from

Every range is built from published pricing data, restated to a single scope so the sources are comparable. The full process, the current source list and the known limitations are documented on the method page. No figure appears anywhere on this site without a traceable source behind it.

Review and revision

Price ranges are reviewed twice a year and after any market event that changes equipment costs materially, such as a refrigerant standard change or a shift in federal incentives. Every page carries the date it was last checked. A page without a recent review date is telling you something, which is why we show it.

Corrections

If a figure is wrong, we change it and we do not quietly overwrite it. Substantive corrections are noted on the page. If you were quoted something outside our published range, that is genuinely useful information: send the state, the capacity and what the quote covered, and it goes into the next revision.

Independence

Advertising pays for this site. It does not influence the content. There is no paid placement in any range, table or comparison, no sponsored posts, and no arrangement under which a brand can affect how it is described. Advertisers see the same published pages as everyone else.

How the content is produced

Drafting and structuring are done with the help of software tools. Verification is not. Every price, specification, regulation and incentive is checked by a person against a named source before publication, and anything that cannot be verified is either marked as unknown or left out. Nothing is published unreviewed.

Third-party material

Where we use data from another publication, we extract the figures and attribute the source with a link. We do not reproduce other people’s text.

Limits of what we publish

This site provides general information about market prices. It does not provide engineering, legal, tax or financial advice, and it cannot account for the specifics of your property. For decisions about your own installation, consult a licensed contractor in your state.