SoftenerCheck

How SoftenerCheck Researches and Reviews Guidance

SoftenerCheck uses software-assisted research to organize manuals, compare documented procedures, and check consistency. Technical instructions are published only when they can be traced to the cited manufacturer or reference. We do not claim hands-on testing, licensed plumbing expertise, or manufacturer approval unless that changes and can be documented.

The hierarchy of sources

Not all sources carry the same weight, and we apply them in a fixed order:

  1. The manufacturer's manual for the exact model. This outranks everything else for any instruction, specification or error code.
  2. The manufacturer's own support documentation. Current, and often more detailed than the printed manual, but sometimes written for a range rather than a model.
  3. Recognised technical bodies, such as the Water Quality Association, for terminology and general principles.
  4. Independent sites — used to discover what people are actually asking, never as the basis for a figure or a procedure.
  5. Forums, videos and comments — treated as signals that a symptom exists, and nothing more. They never become facts here without independent verification.

Every claim is one of three things

Behind the site is a ledger. Each entry records the claim, the document, the page or section, the exact equipment it applies to, and the date it was checked. Each is classified:

How a claim is classified and how it may be used
Status Meaning How it may be published
Fact Stated directly by the cited primary source. May be stated as fact, attributed to the source, with its scope shown.
Inference Our reading of what a source implies, not something it states. Must be presented as our inference, in our own voice. Never framed as a manufacturer instruction.
Unknown Researched, and no adequate source found — or sources that contradict each other. Never published as an assertion. Recorded so we do not research it twice, and so the gap is visible.

A live example: no source we have found reconciles Pentair's iron sizing factor of 4 gpg per ppm with Whirlpool's instruction to add 5 per ppm when programming a WHES30 or WHES33. That is logged as unknown. So the settings calculator will not apply any iron rule to a controller it cannot identify — it returns the base hardness and sends you to your manual. Producing a confident number there would be easy and would be wrong.

Scope discipline

The most common way a water softener article becomes dangerous is by taking a procedure documented for one control and presenting it as universal. Two rules prevent it here:

  • Every procedure carries the equipment it was documented for. When we describe the metering check that begins by holding Program/Select until 000 appears, we say it is documented for Whirlpool and Kenmore controls, because it is.
  • Where two manufacturers independently document a materially identical physical check — the broom-handle test for a salt bridge, for instance, which Whirlpool and GE both describe — we present it as a general check and cite both.

Before a page is published

  1. Identify the single intent the page answers, and its exact scope.
  2. Gather the primary sources and read the relevant sections in full.
  3. Record each claim in the ledger with its document, section and scope.
  4. Separate fact from inference from unknown.
  5. Write the direct answer first, then the checks, then the exceptions.
  6. Verify every figure and procedure against its ledger entry.
  7. Check that no instruction has drifted across a model boundary.
  8. Run the technical and editorial checks, including the automated link and formula tests.
  9. Only then mark the page ready.
  10. Only a ready page enters the sitemap.

A page that fails at any step is not published as a placeholder or hidden behind noindex. It simply is not built. That is why guides on drain lines, bypass valves, resin and individual brands are absent rather than thin.

Dates

A "Checked" date means a person opened that document on that date and confirmed it still says what we report. Dates are never advanced automatically to look fresh. If a page has not been re-verified, it keeps its original date — an honest old date is more useful than a dishonest recent one.

What we will never publish

  • We do not invent authors, credentials, biographies or years of experience.
  • We do not publish testimonials, reviews, ratings or star scores of any kind.
  • We do not claim hands-on testing we have not done.
  • We do not publish part numbers or compatibility claims without a manufacturer source.
  • We do not cite statistics without an identifiable study, its scope and its limitations.
  • We never state that any water is safe to drink — that is not a question this site can answer.
  • We do not present a procedure from one brand or model as applying to another.
  • We do not reproduce manuals or manufacturers' diagrams. Our diagrams are drawn from scratch.

Corrections

Corrections are reviewed against primary documentation. Material changes are recorded on the sources and corrections page. If you believe something here is wrong, tell us — it is the fastest way to make the site better.