Editorial policy

Sourcing

Every cost, frequency, service life, application rate and temperature threshold on this site comes from a named source or from our own measured data. Our preferred sources, in order: land-grant university extension services, USDA, NOAA/NWS, the Department of Energy, the EPA, NFPA, and manufacturer documentation.

When a number we would like to publish does not exist in the literature, we say that rather than estimating one. The grass seed calculator does exactly this for tall fescue overseeding rates.

Review before publishing

Drafts move through three states, and only the last one is public:

1. Draft — researched and written, not visible on the site.
2. Needs review — a person checks every number, instruction and risk against the cited source.
3. Approved — published.

Anything touching gas, electricity, structure, mold, working at height or chemical application requires review before publication, with no exceptions, and the page has to state plainly when the reader should stop and hire someone.

Use of AI

We use AI tools to research and to write first drafts. AI is never used to fabricate experience, testimonials, reviews, author credentials or data.

Automated verification

Some articles are published after automated verification rather than a person reading them. We would rather tell you exactly what that means than let you assume either direction.

What the automated checks do:

• Fetch every source cited and confirm the page actually exists. A draft citing a page that does not exist is rejected outright — this is not hypothetical, it is the single most common failure we see.
• Extract every figure in the article — temperatures, rates, intervals, pressures — and confirm each one appears in a cited source. A figure with no source behind it is removed, and if that guts the recommendation, the article goes to a person instead.
• Run the draft past a second, independent model that audits it against this policy and can reject it.
• Refuse to publish anything about work with real physical risk — heights, gas, electricity, structure, chemicals. Those always go to a person.

What they do not do: judge whether advice suits your particular house, catch an error that is faithfully repeated from a source, or replace expertise. Automated articles carry a note saying so, along with the date of verification.

If you find a mistake in one, tell us — we take the page down while we check, and it does not go back up until it is right.

Our own data

The soil temperature readings behind the timing pages are pulled daily from NOAA's U.S. Climate Reference Network, with a calibrated fallback model when a station is offline. The methodology page publishes the calibration, the error, and the cases where we refuse to answer.

Advertising and affiliate links

The site carries advertising and may earn a commission on links to retailers, including as an Amazon Associate. Advertisers do not see content before it is published and have no say in what we recommend. Product links follow the recommendation; the recommendation never follows the link. We do not invent prices — when a guide links to a retailer, the price lives on that retailer’s page.

Corrections

Errors get fixed as soon as we confirm them, and a correction note stays on the page. To report one, write to [email protected].

What this site is not

It is not professional advice for your specific property. Local codes, soil, slope and the condition of your own equipment change the answer, and a page cannot see any of that.