The product review process I use here at Appliance Hunter has been developed across the 5 years I’ve been running this website. After 100s of hours spent testing products, I now have a 3-step system that allows me to directly compare products so you can save money by buying the right appliance for your circumstances.
1. Hands On Product Testing
It all begins with me buying each product (I never accept products to review) and testing it out. I’ve developed different methods where I can have quantitive measurements of the important aspects of each appliance.
For instance, I have an agreement with each of my neighbours where I cut their grass for free and get to record my experience doing so. No, it wasn’t a hard sell to convince them.
I cut my grass with 1 mower and each of their gardens with another and record the data into a spreadsheet. I record things like how many passes it takes to finish, how even the cut was on a scale of 1-10, how fast the engine started, and things like that.
For vacuum cleaners, I make a mess of my floor using different household items that might need vacuuming (smashed cornflakes are always a good tester) and then repeat the process into a spreadsheet.
I have similar systems for washing machines, pressure washers, tumble dryers, and all the other appliances covered here. Basically, I professionally make a mess and then clean it up again!
2. Industry Research
The second stage involves talking to manufacturers on the phone, reading other people’s experiences with the product and watching many youtube videos detailing the use of each product. I like to see if my experience matches others, and if there are any longer-term issues I’ve missed I like to find out to see if I can replicate the outcome.
I once left a cordless vacuum cleaner plugged in and turned on for 3 days to see what would happen. The outcome? Not much and I had a huge power bill…
I like to go through product manuals as well as part of this process and look into the terms and conditions of warranties to see if it’s actually good value for money.
Hands-on product testing is the core of what I do but this hands-off research to accompany it provides a lot of gems some other reviewers tend to miss.
3. In-depth Reviews
Finally, the review can be written. I normally have a lot of boring information at this point so I have to parse through it all and organise it into something useful for you dear reader.
This usually involves about a week per review, so that I make sure all my facts are straight and can be easily presented to you. I then update these articles each time a new potential product is released or once a year to make sure I’m still happy with my recommendations.
If you have any questions on my process or want to get in touch about a specific product then please head over to the contact page and shoot me an Email, I’d love to hear from you.