What this site is
County Road Home publishes calculators and guides for homes that run their own water system: a private well, a pressure tank, water treatment and a septic tank. The site is run by an independent publisher.
Who we are, and who we are not
Pages are written and checked by the County Road Home team. We are researchers and editors, not licensed well drillers, pump installers, septic contractors, electricians, water-treatment professionals or doctors. We do not install or test equipment, and no page claims that we did. Where a job involves electricity, a septic tank or a health result, the page says who should do it.
How pages are researched
- Sources first. Numbers come from manufacturer manuals and spec sheets (for example Franklin Electric, Goulds/Xylem, Amtrol and Square D), state codes, EPA, CDC, state health departments and university extension services. Each page lists them with the date we checked.
- Disagreements are shown, not hidden. When two sources give different numbers, the page shows both and says which one a calculator uses.
- Calculators show their working. Each tool page explains its formula and the published table behind it, and the formulas are covered by automated tests against the sources' own worked examples.
- Dates mean something. "Last checked" changes only when we re-check the facts on a page.
How we use AI
AI tools help us draft text and organize research. Every number, rule and quotation is checked by an editor against the cited source before a page is published. Anything we could not verify is left out.
How we make money
The site is free to use. We plan to earn money in three ways, each marked where it appears:
- Affiliate links to retailers and water-treatment brands. If you buy through one, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Affiliate links never appear inside a page's short answer, fact tables, calculator results or FAQ answers, and a commission never changes a recommendation: if a $20 part fixes the problem, the page says so.
- Display advertising on articles, not on calculators.
- Referrals to local contractors for jobs a homeowner should not do alone.
Photo credits
Diagrams on this site are our own drawings. Photos come from U.S. government agencies and Wikimedia Commons, and none of them were taken by us:
- A farmstead in Woodbury County, Iowa, set in an evergreen windbreak. Lynn Betts, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (public domain)
- A private well in Loudon, New Hampshire: the casing and vented cap are all that show above ground. U.S. Geological Survey, New England Water Science Center (public domain)
- A truck-mounted rig drilling a new well. U.S. Geological Survey, Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Water Science Center (public domain)
- Septic tank access lids in a Wisconsin lawn. Wikideas1, Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
- Inside a well house in Central Texas. U.S. Geological Survey (public domain)
- Filling a sample bottle at a kitchen tap. U.S. Geological Survey (public domain)
- A chemist at the USGS National Water Quality Laboratory. U.S. Geological Survey National Water Quality Laboratory (public domain)
- A pressure tank and pressure switch at an outdoor wellhead in rural California. Goldrath, U.S. Geological Survey (public domain)
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Corrections
Found an error? Email hello@countyroadhome.com with the page and what is wrong. We review reports within 7 days and note significant corrections at the bottom of the page.