System formula v1.0 · installer scoring not yet live
How we rate, and what we refuse to rate
We publish a score only where we hold evidence. Systems are scored today because manufacturers publish enough to score them. Installers are not, because certification is currently the only fact we hold on each — so we list what we verified and leave the number blank until that changes.
Two things, rated separately
Systems — scored now
Four systems scored out of 100 on published specifications, independent testing and warranty commitment. Every figure links to the manufacturer’s own page with the date we read it.
Installers — listed, not scored
239 installers, every one read from a manufacturer’s authorised-dealer list on 2026-09-12 (source). We show what is verified and what is not.
No invented licence numbers, reviews or response times appear anywhere on this site.
What the system score measures
It measures what a buyer can check before signing: does the maker publish what the product is made of, has an independent lab tested it, and what is the maker still on the hook for afterwards.
It is not a laboratory strength ranking. No manufacturer in this category publishes enough comparable physical data to build one honestly. A genuinely excellent system can score poorly here by declining to publish — that is the intended behaviour. A spec you cannot check is a spec you cannot rely on.
| Group | Points | Why it carries that weight |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer disclosure | 30 | Published pricing alone is 12 of those points: it is the rarest and least game-able signal in this category, and its absence is what makes comparison shopping so hard. |
| Independent testing | 25 | Any recognised third-party protocol counts equally — ANSI/SMA 6001, AS5039, AAMA 1901. We do not rank the standards against each other because no neutral crosswalk exists. |
| Commitment | 30 | Warranty length, whether it covers labour and transfers with the house, and the size of any break-in guarantee. |
| Retention mechanism | 5 | How the mesh is held in the frame is the usual failure point under lever attack. Naming the mechanism is a competence signal. |
| Domestic manufacturing | 10 | A stated editorial preference, not a performance metric — shorter warranty recourse and supply lead times. Subtract it if you disagree; the breakdown makes that easy. |
When installer scoring starts
The installer score goes live when the first of these imports lands, and not before:
- State licence registries — CSLB (California), ROC (Arizona), CILB (Florida), NSCB (Nevada). Public, authoritative, and worth 10 points on their own.
- Insurance certificates, collected from installers who claim their profile.
- Reviews we can anchor to a job — collected 30 days after a lead routed through this site, weighted three times a public review because a transaction provably happened.
- Response measurements — median first reply and lead acceptance rate, measured by us rather than claimed.
Until then an installer profile shows a verification table and nothing that looks like a verdict. Publishing a number we cannot defend would be worse than publishing none.
What money cannot buy
Money buys visibility
- A verified-partner badge and project photos
- A quote button inside the profile
- A clearly labelled sponsored slot above a list
- Priority in lead routing
Money never buys
- The score, or any component of it
- Position in the default ranking
- Removal of an honest negative review
- Suppression of a licence red flag
- Profiles are free to complete. Send test reports and a licence number, earn the points, pay nothing.
- Versioned with a changelog. When the method changes, everyone is recalculated — not a hand-picked subset.
- A dispute process. Challenge a score, send documentation, get an answer within a published window.
- Corrections are public. If we read a spec page wrong, the fix and its date appear in the changelog below.
Changelog
| Version | Date | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| sys 1.0 | 2026-09-12 | System scoring introduced across five groups. Installer scoring withdrawn until real licence data is imported; installer profiles now show a verification table instead of a number. |
| data 1.0 | 2026-09-12 | Replaced all placeholder installer records with 239 real authorised dealers imported from the manufacturer’s public dealer list. Metro coverage is now generated from where dealers actually operate rather than chosen by hand. |