Editorial policy

This describes the rules a figure has to clear before it appears anywhere on the site, and what happens when it cannot clear them. It is written down because a rule that lives only in someone’s head loses to convenience the first time it is inconvenient.

Who writes this

Andrew Flores, working alone, with AI assistance used for drafting and checking and never as a source. He publishes the mini-split reference and answers for corrections to its sizing, zone-planning and operating-cost calculations. Every registered figure must clear the rules below before publication; the rules are written down so evidence and assumptions remain distinguishable.

Admitting a figure

Every registered number enters through one module. A sourced figure carries the value, its unit, the human name of the source and its address, either the sentence that prints the figure or that table row’s cells as printed, the date the source was read, and how it was read: the live page, the publisher’s own dated issue, or a named Internet Archive copy. A derived midpoint names the band it is computed from. The assumed figures carry no outside source; they are labelled as our own adjustments and point to the methodology page, where each is disclosed. A page cannot print a registered figure the register does not hold.

Where a source refuses automated readers, as both cost publishers cited here do, the figure is read from a named Internet Archive copy of the exact cited address, and the page prints that copy’s date beside the figure as a historical cost estimate. Quoting such a page from memory is not permitted, because a figure nobody can re-check is indistinguishable from one somebody made up.

The three labels

Sourced figures are printed in the cited document, as a sentence or as a table cell. A sentence is quoted exactly; a table is shown as its cells, transcribed in reading order, and never dressed up as a quotation. The source is saved byte for byte on the day it is re-checked, so a later reader can see whether we read it correctly.

Derived figures are arithmetic on sourced data. The arithmetic is written out in full on the methodology page. A derived figure never appears without its operation being visible somewhere on the site.

Assumed figures are ours, with no source behind them. They are disclosed at the point of use — on the control itself where a control drives them — as well as in a dedicated section of the methodology page. There are 18 of these in the register, and keeping the count low is a deliberate constraint on what this site is willing to compute.

Freshness

Figures older than 183 days from the date their source was read are re-checked before the site is updated. Published sources change quietly; the point of recording when a source was read is that the date eventually expires and forces a re-read.

Freshness of a figure is not the same as currency of a claim. A cost article retrieved today may itself have been last updated over a year ago, and where that is true the site says so beside the figure. Both dates matter and conflating them would flatter the data.

When two sources disagree

They get printed side by side and neither one wins by default. Averaging two figures that are far apart manufactures a precision neither supports, and quietly picking the one that suits the page is worse. Where the disagreement is severe enough that no honest number exists — as it is for electrical panel upgrades — the site prints both, adds neither to any total, and tells you to get a professional opinion.

Where one source is primary and the other is a survey, the primary document governs and the survey is shown for orientation only. A published municipal fee schedule outranks a national cost estimate about permit fees.

Corrections

A correction that names a page, a figure and a better source is acted on ahead of any new work. When a figure changes, the register changes, and every page that displays it changes with it; there is no separate list of numbers to update and forget. Where a correction changes something a reader may have relied on, it is described in the update log on the methodology page rather than being applied silently.

The register currently holds 120 figures. Every one is listed with its source and dates on the methodology page.

Independence

There is no affiliate relationship, sponsorship, or paid placement with any manufacturer, installer, retailer or lead-generation service, and no page recommends a brand or a contractor. If advertising is ever added it will be clearly distinguishable from the content, it will never be permitted to influence a figure or a recommendation, and the privacy policy will be updated before any advertising code is added rather than afterwards.

What this site is not

It is not engineering advice and it is not a substitute for a load calculation on your actual house. It is a way to arrive at a contractor conversation already knowing roughly what the answer should look like and which questions have real money behind them.