How we research and rank

1. What we do not do

Stating this first, because everything else depends on it.

We do not test products. Splash & Skimmer has no test pool, no product samples and no lab. We have not swum in, assembled, installed or owned any pool, float, pump or cover on this site. No page will ever say or imply that we have.

We hold no credentials in this field and we will not manufacture any. No certified pool operator, no licensed contractor, no chemist, no “expert panel”. The author is described as an enthusiast because that is what is true.

We accept no free products and no sponsored placement, and commission does not determine ranking order.

The ranking field in this category leads with test labs and thirty-year veterans. We cannot imitate that honestly. What we can do is publish a method that anyone can reproduce, which is a different kind of credibility and one that requires nothing we do not have.

2. How we select products

The criteria, in the order they carry weight:

1. Published capacity or capability. For pools, gallons. For pumps, flow rate. A product whose maker publishes neither cannot be budgeted for before purchase, and we say so rather than filling the gap.
2. Construction as documented by the manufacturer. Frame material, liner ply, valve type, scrim weight — whatever the maker actually states.
3. Running cost across a season, computed per section 3 below.
4. What is in the kit. A cheaper listing missing the ladder and cover is usually the more expensive purchase.
5. Consumable availability. A filter format you cannot buy locally in July is a real disadvantage.
6. Transparency. A manufacturer that publishes its specifications openly earns credit here, explicitly. One that publishes nothing loses it.

3. How we compute running costs

Every cost figure on this site is arithmetic over published inputs. Here are the formulas and the sources, in full.

Turnover, which is how we size filtration

Hours per turnover = gallons ÷ the pump’s system flow rate. We deliberately use the system figure rather than the headline pump flow rate, because the system figure is what actually passes through once the cartridge is in the path — using the headline number over-states turnover by roughly a third.

4. Assumptions we state every time

A computation is only reproducible if its assumptions are visible. Ours:

That last row matters. We looked for published federal guidance on total alkalinity and did not find any — the CDC publishes free chlorine and pH targets for home pools and does not address alkalinity. The widely used 80–120 ppm figure is a trade convention. We label it as one rather than dressing it up, and you should know the difference between the two kinds of number on this site.

5. What we could not verify, and say so

Documenting gaps is part of the method, not an admission of weakness. Two current examples:

Pump wattage. Neither Intex nor Bestway publishes power draw for their above-ground pool pumps — both publish flow rate only. That means the single largest input to an annual running cost is unavailable before purchase from both of the brands that dominate this market. We publish a table across the plausible range and tell you to read your own label, rather than estimating a number and presenting it as fact.

Evaporation rates. We could not find a national figure for domestic above-ground pools that we would stand behind. So we explain how to measure your own and decline to publish a number.

6. Where our numbers disagree with a source

We flag it rather than picking the flattering reading. The clearest current example: ENERGY STAR publishes that a certified above-ground pool pump saves about $20 a year at 11% better efficiency, which implies a baseline of roughly $182 a year. But $182 spread across a 120-day, 8-hour season would mean a pump drawing over 1,000 watts, which is far more than a cartridge pump on a domestic frame pool. Spread across a year-round season it implies about 340 watts, which is plausible.

We say that openly in the cost guide rather than quietly adopting whichever interpretation made the page look better, because the difference between those readings is the difference between $60 and $182 a year.

7. Scores

Every product carries a numeric score across four to six metrics. Those scores are our reading of published specifications and nothing else. They are not test results, they are not customer ratings, and they are not aggregated from anywhere.

Because of that, no score on this site appears in structured data. We emit Product and Offer markup where a live price exists; we do not emit Review, review-rating or aggregate-rating markup anywhere, ever. Marking an editorial score up as a review rating would contradict this page.

8. Prices

Prices render only from a live data layer and are stamped with the date they were checked. Data older than 48 hours is treated as absent, and the button falls back to “check price”. There is deliberately no code path on this site that can render a hardcoded price, which is why you will not find a dollar figure for a product written into any article.

9. Updates and corrections

Roundups are reviewed quarterly and whenever a product is discontinued. Cost guides are reviewed annually and whenever national rates shift materially — the whole page is arithmetic over those rates, so a stale rate makes it wrong. Chemistry and how-to guides are reviewed annually. Every refresh updates the visible last-updated date and the sitemap’s lastmod, from the real content date rather than the build timestamp.

If you find an error, tell us at info@splashandskimmer.com. We publish arithmetic specifically so it can be checked, and a correction is a better outcome than an unchallenged mistake. Our correction process is in the editorial policy.