How we judge and rank

A verdict is worth something only when you can see what produced it. Here is what produces ours.

Where a verdict on bathroom fittings comes from

Every verdict on this site is built through the same four steps, and each step leaves something on the page that you can check for yourself.

It is that last rule that carries the weight. A figure with a source can be disputed; a figure without one can only be believed.

What we weigh

We rank on the measurements that decide whether a thing fits, the specifications that decide whether it works, and the ones that decide how long it keeps working. In practice that means six things:

• The measurement that decides whether it fits. The center distance between two wall outlets, the faucet hole diameter, the hinge hole spacing on a toilet bowl, the build height a shower channel needs under the floor, the thread on a drain, the clearance a lowest shelf leaves above a tank lid. This is first because it is the reason most of these products come back, and because a photograph never answers it.
• The number that governs the product, and the conditions it was measured under. A flow rate with the pressure beside it, a minimum operating pressure for a thermostatic cartridge, a water seal depth on a trap, a stated load capacity for a hook or a rail, a softener capacity quoted against a water hardness. Where a maker publishes a headline figure without the one that qualifies it, we say so rather than repeating it.
• What decides whether it is still fitted in ten years. A shower head whose nozzles can be rubbed clean in hard water, a holder that drains instead of standing its brush in water, a slide bar set whose bracket spacing adjusts onto the holes already in your tile, a trap you can unscrew without tools. Every category has one detail that decides whether something is lived with or replaced, and that is the one we describe.
• What is not in the box, and what is not free. The unslotted drain a sink without an overflow actually requires, the space-saving trap a drawer vanity needs to close, the washer a shower hose is useless without, the rough-in valve a Roman tub trim cannot work without. This is weighted more heavily here than on most sites, deliberately: a purchase that needs a second purchase to work is not the price on the listing.
• Spares and serviceability. Whether the cartridge is a part you can still buy by model number in ten years or a shape only that maker sells, and no longer stocks; whether a soft-close hinge, a dispenser pump, a filter or a shower head face is available on its own. This is why a product that performs slightly worse sometimes outranks one that performs better.
• Whether your store carries it. Each reference is confirmed market by market, and the page says which markets carry a live offer. Equipment nobody sells where you live is not a recommendation, whatever it is made of.

Where the evidence on bathroom fittings comes from

Three sources, weighted differently and always named. Manufacturer specifications and manuals, cited as such rather than repeated as fact — they are reliable for dimensions, threads and connections, less reliable for flow and for anything described as a saving. Declared figures where they exist (a flow rate with its test pressure, a minimum operating pressure, a water seal depth, a stated load capacity), always flagged as a figure to verify on the current listing rather than a permanent guarantee. And the weight of long-term owner reports, which is the only practical source for the question that matters most: what is this like in year three, after the chrome has met hard water every day, after the soft-close hinge has slowed, and after the maker has quietly changed the cartridge it fits?

When a claim stands on a single source instead of three, the page says as much. When no source could be found for a figure, the page says that too, rather than quietly leaving the line out.

What the ordering means

We publish no scores. There is no number out of ten on this site, and there never has been — a single figure would have to compare a $750 water softener with a $9 sink trap, and it cannot. What we publish instead is an order: within a category, the sequence is deliberate, and the reasons for it are in the text.

Within a hub the order runs entry, mid, then top. A buyer arrives with a budget rather than with an ambition, and a page that opens on the dearest fitting answers a question nobody asked.

The pulls this method is built to resist

Affiliate sites drift towards expensive products, towards whatever is newest, and towards whatever converts. Our defense is structural rather than a promise: no ranking on this site has ever been reordered because of what a product pays, several pages recommend a $12 flapper instead of a replacement toilet, and no product has ever been placed in exchange for anything.

There is a bias specific to this subject, and it is worth naming. Finish sells fittings. A page written around a photograph closes by recommending the matte black faucet, and says nothing about the zamak body under the coating or the cartridge nobody stocks. No page here is built that way. Where the honest answer is that an upgrade changes very little — a 12-inch shower head on a 20 psi supply, a third spray mode nobody uses, a designer trap hidden inside a cupboard — the page says so.

The one bias we cannot remove is availability. We cover what is genuinely purchasable on Amazon.com for delivery to a US address, which means excellent fittings sold only by plumbing supply houses and specialist distributors are under-represented here, and European fittings built for other plumbing standards are left out. Where that matters to the recommendation, the page says so.

A published figure is passed on as it stands, never recalculated

Bathroom fittings are sold on measurements, and those measurements are the easiest thing on a listing to repeat carelessly. The rule that governs every page that touches them: every dimension, center distance, thread size, flow rate, operating pressure, water seal depth, capacity and load figure on this site is reported from the manufacturer's own documentation, with its unit written as published and its source named, and never calculated or inferred by us. Where a figure is not published, the page says it is not published rather than offering a plausible one.

Where a maker states 1.8 gpm at 80 psi, an 8-inch hole spacing or a 2-inch trap seal, we report that the manufacturer states it and link to what they publish. We are not a testing laboratory, so nothing here should be read as a measurement of our own — and no product on this site is described as stronger or more economical than another on the strength of a specification alone.

What a word on a box actually promises

One sentence governs the whole site, and it is the reason several pages here read less enthusiastically than their competitors: a declared feature is a description, not a guarantee. The 100 °F (38 °C) stop on a thermostatic valve is a detent you can deliberately push past, not a scald-prevention device. "Chrome" describes a plated surface and says nothing about the brass, zamak or stainless steel underneath. "Water saving" describes a restrictor, and what it saves depends on your pressure and your habits, not on the box. We write it that way because the alternative — treating a word as a promise — sells more fittings and leaves a reader disappointed by a purchase that did exactly what it said.

What this site will not claim

Two limits are absolute here, and they are worth stating plainly. A water softener treats limescale: it is not a health product, it does not make water safer to drink, and softened water carries more sodium rather than less. A filter reduces what its manufacturer declares it reduces, and this site reports that declaration without adding a benefit for skin, hair or health to it. In every country this site covers, supply water is already regulated as drinking water; anything beyond that is a matter for your supplier and your doctor, not for a comparison site.

Where this site stops

Nothing here replaces the manufacturer's own installation instructions. For anything that goes on a wall, holds water under pressure, or takes an electrical supply in a damp room, the page points at them — and at your national wiring and plumbing rules — rather than paraphrasing them, even though a page that stops earns nothing.

And the one safety statement we repeat rather than assume: the load a fixing states describes the fixing, not your wall. That figure is measured as a straight pull on a sound, solid substrate; tile over drywall, tile over brick and aerated block behave in three different ways with the same screws, and a wet towel pulled downwards applies a shock load rather than the steady one the figure describes. Pages that touch that boundary say it in the text rather than in a disclaimer at the bottom.