Owners and Shop Links
In short
Chalk & Cistern is owned by the same people as SoftPro Water Systems and Quality Water Treatment, two US water-treatment shops, and eleven of its pages link to their products.
Updated
Who owns this site
The owners of Chalk & Cistern also own two shops in the United States that sell water softeners, filters and related equipment: SoftPro Water Systems (a US shop with the same owners as this site) and Quality Water Treatment (a US shop with the same owners as this site). Every page that links to either shop carries a note beside the link naming that shared ownership.
The rest of the site, including the pages on boilers, leaks, drains, meters and landlords' duties, has no shop product links at all.
Which pages link the shops
Product links appear on these eleven pages, and only there:
- Portsmouth hard water by zone
- Limescale: causes and removal
- Water softeners
- Water softener size
- Salt-free scale reducers
- A separate drinking water tap
- Reverse osmosis systems
- Lead water pipes
- Water filters
- Private water supplies
- Combi boilers and hard water
No page links more than four products, and each link points to a specific type of unit the page discusses, such as a salt softener or an under-sink reverse osmosis unit.
Why US shops on a UK site
The shops serve US buyers, so on a British site their listings work as reference models: real units with published sizes, stages and specifications that show what a type of equipment looks like. A softener listed in grains per US gallon, for example, can be converted and compared with Portsmouth Water's figures in milligrams per litre.
The pages never suggest a reader in Hampshire can order these units, get them delivered or rely on a UK warranty. A softener or filter fitted in England has to comply with the 1999 water fittings rules for England, and some units must be notified to the water company first. A UK buyer should look for equipment the installer can show complies.
How shop claims are treated
What a shop says about its own products is reported as the shop's claim, in its own words where it matters. Where a certification body lists a model, the page names that certifier and the standard, exactly as the listing reads. Promises of health benefits, removal of "all" contaminants or savings that no certificate supports are left out, and the shops' own water-quality pages are not used as sources. See how pages are checked for the wider method.
One page, on water softeners, also shows a short video from SoftPro Water Systems' own YouTube channel. Its caption says it comes from a shop with the same owners and that the views in it are the shop's. Every other video on the site comes from a water company, a regulator or a boiler maker.