Editorial Standards

Editorial Mission and Approach

The site exists to help homeowners understand residential HVAC well enough to make informed decisions about system sizing, equipment selection, and contractor recommendations. Content is educational, methodology-transparent, and free of commercial bias.

The approach is deliberately conservative. We do not break news, do not chase trending topics, do not optimize content for social media virality. The content is designed to be accurate when published, remain accurate as standards change (via update cycles), and remain useful 5-10 years after publication. The depth of source citation makes that durability possible — every claim can be re-verified against its original source at any time.

The editorial voice is third-person factual for hub and article content, with first-person "we" voice reserved for site-identity pages like this one, the about page, and the methodology page.

The brand voice document specifies forbidden phrases (marketing fluff like "navigate the world of," "in today's world," "look no further") and limits on stylistic devices (max 3 em-dashes per article, max 4 sentences per paragraph). The voice is technical but accessible: readers should level up, not be talked down to.

Who Writes the Content

All content is written by Jonathan Stowe (the author page), a writer-researcher specializing in residential HVAC methodology. The site does not claim professional engineering authority — it claims that rigorous research into ACCA, ASHRAE, NEEP, DOE, and other primary sources produces content that helps non-specialists make better decisions.

When subject-matter expertise beyond the author's reading is required, the relevant source is cited directly. The site relies on authoritative standards for the substance of every claim. When a methodology question requires reasoning beyond what standards explicitly address, the article either presents the major reasonable-practitioner positions (with their respective sources) or labels the editorial position as such rather than asserting it as fact.

Editorial contributions from external practitioners are welcome but currently rare. The editorial process for accepting a guest perspective requires the contributor to follow the source tier system, the brief format, and the review process; we have not yet established a guest-contributor channel.

Sourcing Standards: The Tier System

Every claim that could be disputed is cited to a source via the SourceCite component (which renders as a superscript citation linking to the SOURCES list). Sources are classified by tier.

The tier hierarchy is applied consistently. When a claim has a tier 1 source available, the article cites tier 1 even if a tier 2 source presents the same fact more accessibly. The rationale: tier 1 sources are revision-tracked by standards organizations (ACCA, ASHRAE, AHRI, DOE) and remain authoritative through revision cycles, while secondary sources can become out of date silently.

The exception is where tier 1 standards are paywalled and tier 2 sources reproduce the relevant data in accessible form. In those cases the citation is tier 1 (for the standard authority) plus a parenthetical pointing to where the data is also available freely. The DOE Energy Saver consumer guides, for example, reproduce many ASHRAE Handbook tables in publicly accessible form.

The Six-Stage Article Review Process

Every article goes through six stages before publication.

The review process is not a linear waterfall in practice — stages 3, 4, and 5 often surface issues that require returning to stage 2 (drafting) for revision. The full cycle for a typical hero-depth article takes 8-15 hours of editorial work spread across 2-4 sessions, plus the underlying research time which can be substantially longer for novel topics.

Brief documents are checked into the repository at /content/briefs/ so that the editorial intent for each article is auditable. This is part of the editorial standards' transparency commitment: a reader who wants to understand why a specific topic was covered in a specific way can read the original brief alongside the published article.

Hard Rules That Cannot Be Bypassed

A subset of the editorial standards are "hard rules" — bypassable only with explicit policy revision, never quietly compromised.

The hard rules exist to prevent slow drift toward generic content marketing. Without them, the temptation over time would be to add "click here" links because they are common, to publish 6-sentence paragraphs because they feel substantive, or to soften technical claims that might seem too sharp. The rules make that drift visible and (when it happens) reversible.

Update Cadence

The cadence has three layers.

Annual review baseline. Every article is reviewed at least annually with the last-reviewed date updated regardless of whether content changed. The annual review verifies that every cited URL still resolves, every standards version is current, and every quoted threshold matches the current authoritative document.

Standards-triggered reviews. When a major standard is revised (new edition of ACCA Manual J, new ENERGY STAR specification version, new NEEP CCASHP version, new DOE final rule), every article citing the standard is reviewed within 60 days. The review confirms whether the change affects published numbers or methodology and implements updates as needed.

Critical updates. Safety-related changes (refrigerant regulation, CO exposure thresholds, code-mandated efficiency minimums) are implemented within 14 days of becoming effective. Tax credit and rebate program changes are implemented within 30 days because the timing matters for readers making purchase decisions.

The corrections page logs material updates triggered by any of these review processes. The last-reviewed date on each article page reflects the most recent verification of accuracy against current standards.

Independence and Conflicts of Interest

The site is independent of every commercial party in the residential HVAC ecosystem.

The independence disclosure above covers every category of commercial party referenced across the site's content. When a new commercial relationship is established (for example, a hosting or infrastructure provider change), it gets added to the table within 30 days of becoming active. The table is intentionally exhaustive so that "what does the site have a commercial relationship with" can be answered by reading one place.

If a reader believes a commercial relationship is undisclosed or misrepresented, email is the right channel for raising it. We treat independence claims with the same correction discipline as factual content — if the disclosure is wrong, it gets corrected on the same timeline as any other material correction.

Corrections Policy

When an error is identified — whether in factual content, methodology, sourcing, or accessibility — the policy is unambiguous.

(1) Fix immediately in the article. The corrected content replaces the original; the original is not preserved in the published version (it is preserved in git history for audit).

(2) Update last-reviewed date in the article frontmatter so the corrected content carries the date of correction.

(3) Log the correction at /corrections/ with: the original claim verbatim, the corrected claim, the date, the affected article URL, the source supporting the correction, and (with the reporter's explicit consent) attribution to the reader who reported.

(4) Notify the reporter (when correction was reader-initiated) that the correction has been published. Provide a link to the corrections page entry and offer attribution.

The corrections page is public, indexed, and discoverable. The deliberate visibility of corrections is part of the editorial commitment: accuracy is a higher priority than ego, and a visible correction log creates incentive to publish carefully in the first place.

We respond to all correction reports within 14 days. Material methodology disagreements that require longer evaluation get an acknowledgment within 14 days and a substantive response within 60 days.

Accessibility Standards

The site is designed to be usable across reading abilities, devices, and assistive technologies.

Accessibility verification happens at stage 4 of the review process (mobile and accessibility review). Issues identified at stage 4 block publication until resolved. Recurring accessibility issues trigger updates to the component library so the issue cannot recur on future articles.

Reader Feedback Process

Reader questions, corrections, and methodology feedback are welcomed via the contact page.

Feedback categories handled:

(1) Methodology corrections. A specific numeric value, formula, or methodology choice disagrees with the cited primary source. These are highest priority and processed within the corrections policy timeline.

(2) Methodology disagreements. A reasonable practitioner disagrees with a methodology interpretation. These get evaluated against the source, either implemented or defended with citation, and (where the disagreement is genuinely contested) documented as a known editorial position rather than fact.

(3) Out-of-date information. A standard has been updated or a regulatory program has changed, and the site does not yet reflect it. Updates are batched into the next quarterly review cycle except for critical safety or program-deadline updates which are handled faster.

(4) Topic suggestions. A reader requests coverage of a topic not yet on the site. Suggestions inform the editorial roadmap but do not necessarily produce immediate coverage. Topics aligning with the site's strategic content plan get higher priority.

(5) Accessibility issues. A reader reports difficulty using the site with assistive technology or on a specific device. These are treated as bugs and prioritized for fixing in the next maintenance cycle.

We respond to substantive feedback within 14 days. Routine inquiries are acknowledged but may not receive detailed individual responses; the site is small and individual sizing consultation is outside scope.