Editorial standards
This guide exists to help San Diego homeowners pick a water heater company with confidence. That only works if you can trust what we publish. These are the rules we hold ourselves to.
Independence
- Editorial rankings, "best for" labels, and review copy are never for sale.
- Companies cannot preview, edit, or approve their own writeups.
- Sponsored placements are labeled where they appear, not in a footer footnote.
- No company employee or owner writes for this guide.
Sourcing and verification
- Factual claims on profiles carry source links and a last-verified date.
- We distinguish verified facts ("CSLB-verified") from recorded claims ("per the company's site") — and we say which is which.
- We do not copy review text from any platform. We summarize themes only when the underlying source is linked.
- Numbers we can't source don't get published. There are no estimated review counts or invented "average ratings" on this site.
What we will never publish
- Fabricated reviews, ratings, awards, or "as seen in" logos.
- License, insurance, or bonding claims we haven't seen evidence for.
- Pay-to-play "verified" badges.
- Near-duplicate pages that swap a neighborhood name and nothing else.
Corrections
If we got a fact wrong — a license number, an availability claim, a service we said a company does or doesn't offer — email editor@sandiegowaterheater.com with the correction and a source. We verify and fix errors promptly, and material corrections are noted on the affected page. Companies: the fastest way to improve your profile is to send documentation, not a complaint about your rank.
Updates
Rankings and profiles are re-verified on a recurring cycle; every page shows when its data was last checked. A date change without a re-verification is something we consider a violation of this policy.
Policy last updated June 2026