How We Research and Recommend

The inside of a dishwasher with the lower rack removed and the filter exposed — The dishwasher guide starts here, at the filter, because that is where the manufacturer service interval starts.

Two evidence standards, and the one we use

Every guide on HomeNerdy is research-led: the how-to guides and the buying guides in Nerdy Reviews alike. The hands-on review standard sits beside it so you know what a product review would have to show before it could claim a test. No product review meets it yet.

	Research-led guide	Hands-on product review (none yet)
Built from	Manufacturer documentation, industry standards, professional consensus, documented user outcomes	Hands-on use of a product we bought ourselves
Claims hands-on testing	No	Yes, and says how long for
Typical language	“per manufacturer guidance”, “commonly recommended”, “widely reported”	“we ran this for six weeks and…”
Label	Category badge	Hands-on review label

When one of our writers runs a test on a method inside a research-led guide, or has direct hands-on experience with it, we say so in the guide, at the point it is relevant, and describe what we did. We never imply it site-wide. Two guides report a test we ran ourselves: six methods on yellowed plastic and five stain methods on a Ninja blender jar.

Research-led

How a guide gets made

Research, before a word is written
Product manuals, safety data sheets and official manufacturer recommendations first. Then the standards: EPA, OSHA and the relevant trade associations. Then what licensed professionals (plumbers, electricians, cleaning specialists) actually recommend. Last, the documented real-world outcomes, including the common mistakes.
Diagnose before you prescribe
Every guide opens by helping you identify which problem you actually have. A limescale mark and an etched surface look similar and need opposite treatments; a guide that skips the diagnosis will damage something.
Order methods gentlest first
You should never open with the nuclear option. Methods escalate, and each one names the materials it is safe on and the ones it is not.
State the limits
Every method carries what it cannot do. If a popular hack has limited effectiveness, that goes in before you waste an afternoon on it.
Editorial review against the checklist
Nothing publishes until it clears the checklist below.

The gate

The publishing checklist

Every guide clears all seven before it goes live. This is the same list our editor works from.

Safety warnings present, prominent, and above the method they apply to
No absolute claims: no “always works”, no “guaranteed”
Sources cited for every technical and safety claim
Limitations stated for each method, not just the article as a whole
A “when to call a professional” section, with a real threshold
Materials compatibility verified against manufacturer guidance
The evidence basis is labelled: research-led, or hands-on

Buying guides

How a buying guide chooses its picks

The buying guides in Nerdy Reviews are research-led like everything else here. None of them claims that we used the products.

Step	What it means
Criteria first	The guide sets out what matters for that product, and why, before it names a pick.
A minimum bar	A product that fails it is out, however popular it is.
Sources, weakest labelled	Manufacturer specifications and manuals, independent certifications where the category has them, and verified owner reviews, which show what owners commonly report rather than what is established.
What we did not do	Stated in the guide’s How We Chose section.

Six of the eight buying guides carry a How We Chose section today; the nursery purifier and fireplace grate guides predate that format.

The stricter standard

What a hands-on review would have to show

We have not published a hands-on product review yet. If we do, it has to meet all of this, and it will be labelled Hands-on review.

Bought at retail price from an ordinary shop: no free products, manufacturer samples or press units
Used in the conditions you would use it in, not one demo run
Judged over weeks, and the review says how long
No sponsorship and no copy approval

The refusals

What we will not do

Accept payment, free products or samples in exchange for coverage
Let a brand see, approve or influence a guide before it publishes
Claim hands-on testing we have not done
Publish an absolute claim, however good it would look in a search result
Recommend a method we would not use on our own home
Quietly re-date an old guide to make it look current

When we get it wrong

Corrections

We will get things wrong. When we do, the correction goes on the guide itself, dated, saying what changed. We do not delete the error quietly and we do not bury the note at the bottom of an unrelated page.

If you have found something wrong, especially anything with a safety consequence, tell us and we will look at it. That is the fastest way to make this site better and we treat it as a favour, not a complaint.

Found something on this site that fails the standard above?Safety problems go to the top of the queue.

Report it to the editor