Editorial Standards

This page answers three questions directly: where our price ranges come from, what it means when a guide says something is not HVAC advice, and what happens after someone tells us we got a number wrong.

Sourcing the numbers

Every range behind the calculator and the guides traces back to contractor pricing surveys, published manufacturer list pricing, and regional labor-rate data, not an internal spreadsheet nobody can check. When a guide states a specific figure, such as typical labor cost per install or the payback period on a high-efficiency upgrade, the reasoning sits in the same paragraph as the claim rather than in a footnote you have to hunt for. We do not accept payment, free equipment, or discounted installs from HVAC manufacturers or contractors in exchange for a mention, and no company gets better placement because it advertises here.

What "not HVAC advice" covers

Jessica Martinez writes everything published on this site, and she is a pricing researcher, not a licensed HVAC technician or contractor. Nothing here diagnoses a furnace problem, confirms what size unit your specific house needs, or tells you whether your ductwork can be reused without modification. Where a guide describes efficiency tiers, venting requirements, or warning signs of a failing furnace, it is describing how those things generally work and what they generally cost, not making a call about your furnace. That call belongs to a licensed contractor who has actually been inside your house.

Corrections

Spot a stale price, a wrong year, or a claim that does not hold up? The contact page is the fastest route to us. Jessica checks the claim against its original source before changing anything. If the correction is warranted, the page gets updated and its "updated" date moves forward; for a change that affects a cost figure in a meaningful way, we also note what changed rather than quietly editing the page.

Lines we will not cross