About The Home Engine
Independent, sourced research on the mechanical systems that go into a house — heating, cooling, hot water, well water, solar and storage. Every specification traced to its source, and what owners actually report after five years.
Who publishes this
The Home Engine is published by The Home Engine Research, operating as Fieldnotes Research.
We research durable goods that people buy once a decade, on the advice of whoever is selling them. Every specification we publish is traced to the document it came from, and every recommendation explains itself.
We say this plainly because common ownership of several titles is only a problem when it is hidden. A publisher that stands behind its titles by name is accountable for them; one that conceals the relationship is running something else entirely.
The research and editorial judgment on The Home Engine is led by Dave Whittemore — read who's behind this and why →
Editorial standards
These apply to every title The Home Engine Research publishes, not just this one.
- Every published figure carries a named source, a date, and a confidence score.
- Sources are ranked by authority. A certification body outranks a manufacturer's marketing sheet, which outranks a review site.
- Where sources disagree materially, we say so. Where they disagree beyond 25%, we withhold the product rather than guess.
- We do not test equipment ourselves. Where we aggregate other people's testing or experience, we say whose. Where we express an opinion, we label it as ours.
- We synthesise and link. We never republish other people's writing at length.
- No payment influences a ranking. Commercial relationships are disclosed on the page where they apply.
What we don't do
We don't test equipment ourselves. We aggregate, verify and cross-check published data, and we collect what owners and trade professionals report. Where we rely on someone else's testing, we name them. Where we express a judgement, it is labelled as ours. If you want independent laboratory testing, Consumer Reports does that and we will say so rather than imply we do.
We don't republish other people's writing. Forum posts, reviews and video are synthesised and quoted briefly with a link back. Amazon review text is never stored — their terms prohibit it and their API does not provide it.
We don't let payment move a ranking. Any commercial relationship is disclosed on the page where it applies.
Corrections
Every figure on this site names its source and the date it was read, specifically so you can check it. If something here is wrong, we would rather know. Our validation checks already withhold 4 products whose data we could not verify, and we publish the warnings that don't rise to that level rather than hiding them.