How we judge and rank

A verdict is only useful if you know what produced it. Here is ours.

Where a verdict comes from

Every verdict here is assembled in the same four steps, and each of them leaves something on the page you can check: we read the specifications, the manuals and the ratings that apply to the product, we weigh what long-term owners consistently report about it, and we name the source of every figure we publish.

That last rule is the one that does the work. A number with a source can be argued with; a number without one is decoration. Where a figure exists in a manual and contradicts the marketing, we quote the manual. Where no reliable figure exists at all, the page says so and leaves the field empty rather than filling it with something plausible.

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 centre distance between two wall outlets, the tap hole diameter, the hinge hole spacing on a toilet pan, the build height a shower channel needs under the floor, the thread on a waste, the clearance a lowest shelf leaves above a cistern 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.
• The thing that decides whether it stays in use. A shower head whose nozzles can be rubbed clean in hard water, a holder that drains instead of standing its brush in water, a rail 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 waste a basin without an overflow actually requires, the space-saving trap a drawer vanity unit needs to close, the cone seals a shower hose is useless without, the eccentric connectors a 153 mm wall demands of a 150 mm tap. 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 standard 35 or 40 mm disc you can still buy in ten years or a shape only that maker sells; 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.
• Availability where you are. 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 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?

Where a claim rests on one source rather than three, the page says so. Where we could not source a figure at all, the field is left empty and the gap is stated. We never fill one in by inference.

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 €600 water softener with a €6 angle valve, 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 biases we designed against

Affiliate sites drift towards expensive products, towards whatever is newest, and towards whatever converts. Our defence 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 €15 accessory instead of a replacement tap, 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 matt black tap, 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 30 cm shower head on a 1.5 bar 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 across Amazon's US, UK, German, French, Italian and Spanish stores, which means excellent fittings sold only by trade suppliers and specialist distributors are under-represented here. Where that matters to the recommendation, the page says so.

A published figure is reported, never computed

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, centre 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 5 l/min at 3 bar, a 150 mm centre distance or a 50 mm water 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 38 °C stop on a thermostatic mixer 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, mains 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 plasterboard, 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.