Our method
How we rank states, choose which brands to list, and source and refresh prices. We do not do hands-on product testing.
State outage ranking
We sort 50 states + DC by 2024 SAIDI, the average outage minutes per customer including major event days, from EIA Form EIA-861 “State Totals” (IEEE standard). We also show minutes excluding major event days and SAIFI (outages per customer). Only utilities reporting under the IEEE standard are counted. Trend tables on state pages are customer-weighted averages of each year's IEEE-reporting utilities from the 2013–2024 EIA-861 Reliability files; our 2024 figures match EIA's state totals exactly.
How brands are chosen
Brand lists are A–Z and unscored. A brand is listed if it sells products in that category to U.S. homeowners through its own site or major retailers and publishes spec sheets. No brand pays to be listed. We never claim tests we haven't run, and we use no rating or review markup.
How prices are sourced
Cost figures come from published cost guides (currently Angi and HomeGuide). We show each source's own range side by side when they differ, record the date we checked, and re-check at least every 6 months or when a source updates.
Incentives
State and utility incentives are listed only with a link to the program or tax authority and an access date. If we can't verify one, we leave it out.