Privacy Policy

Summary

hvacloadcalc.org is an educational HVAC reference site funded by display advertising served through Google AdSense and its third-party advertising partners. This policy explains, in detail and without hedging, what data is collected, what cookies are set, what controls you have, and how to exercise your privacy rights.

The site collects only what is operationally necessary plus what advertising vendors set on it through standard ad-network integration. There is no customer database, no marketing email list, no behavioral profile, and no sale of personal information. If you want to use the site with no third-party cookies at all, block third-party cookies in your browser; every calculator and every article remains fully functional.

What Data We Collect

The site collects data in three categories: standard server logs, advertising and measurement data (set by Google and its ad partners), and any email you choose to send to the site.

Server request logs (Vercel hosting platform)

Like every website on the public internet, hvacloadcalc.org's hosting platform records standard HTTP request logs when a page is served. These contain:

This data is the minimum technically necessary to serve a web page. It is generated by Vercel infrastructure, not by code added to the site. Vercel retains these logs per its own retention schedule (see Vercel's privacy notice for specifics).

Advertising and measurement data (Google AdSense and partners)

When you load a page on this site, Google AdSense and its third-party ad partners may set and read cookies and similar identifiers on your browser to deliver and measure advertising. These cookies are described in detail in the Advertising and Third-Party Vendors section below.

The site itself does not directly collect, store, or process advertising data. Google and its partners collect this data through their own standard ad-network integration; the site embeds the AdSense ad code, which loads the rest.

Email correspondence

When you choose to email info@hvacloadcalc.org, the message and the email address it was sent from are received and read by the editorial inbox. This data is used solely to respond to your inquiry. It is not added to a mailing list, a marketing system, or any third-party CRM.

Correction reports may be referenced in the public corrections log — but reporter attribution there is opt-in only (the default is anonymous; you have to explicitly request attribution to receive it).

Cookies and Local Storage

Cookies and similar storage on this site break into two categories.

You can block any or all of these cookies through your browser's privacy settings. Calculators on this site run entirely in your browser as plain JavaScript — they require no cookies, no local storage, and no server connection beyond loading the initial page.

Advertising and Third-Party Vendors

This is the section that describes how advertising on hvacloadcalc.org works, in line with Google AdSense publisher policies and applicable privacy law.

Google AdSense

hvacloadcalc.org uses Google AdSense, a service provided by Google LLC, to serve display advertising on article and calculator pages.

Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to this website or other websites on the internet. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visits to this site and other sites on the internet.

The full Google advertising technology and policies — including the specific cookies Google sets, how Google uses the data collected, how long Google retains it, and how Google handles legal requests — are described at the Google policy pages linked below.

Other third-party advertising vendors

Through Google AdSense, third-party advertising vendors may serve ads on this site and may set their own cookies. These vendors operate under Google's Ad Exchange and are subject to Google's policies for participating vendors. You can review the participating third-party vendors and adjust controls via the Google resources linked above, or use industry self-regulatory opt-outs:

Personalized versus non-personalized advertising

Personalized advertising uses information about your prior visits, inferred interests, and similar signals to select which ads to show you. Non-personalized advertising uses only contextual signals (the page content, your approximate location at country level, and your device type) to select ads, with no profile-based targeting.

EU, UK, and Swiss users are shown a Google-certified consent management platform on first visit and may choose personalized or non-personalized advertising. Users in other jurisdictions can switch to non-personalized advertising at any time via Google Ads Settings.

EU/UK consent (GDPR and ePrivacy)

For users in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, the site complies with Google's EU User Consent Policy. A Google-certified consent management platform is presented on first visit. Until valid consent is recorded for personalized advertising, only non-personalized (contextual) advertising is served to those users. The consent state is recorded in a consent cookie or similar storage and can be revisited at any time through the CMP control.

California residents (CCPA / CPRA)

For California residents, the California Consumer Privacy Act and the California Privacy Rights Act provide specific rights. hvacloadcalc.org does not sell personal information for monetary consideration and does not knowingly share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising in a way that requires affirmative opt-out under California law.

The Google AdSense integration may transmit identifiers to Google and its ad partners as described above; California residents who wish to opt out of personalized advertising should use Google Ads Settings or the DAA opt-out tool linked above. To exercise other CCPA rights (access, deletion, correction), email info@hvacloadcalc.org with subject "Privacy."

How We Use Information

The categories of data described above are used as follows.

(1) Server logs operate and secure the site — serving requests, detecting abuse (excessive request rates, scraping attempts, malformed payloads), and diagnosing errors. They are not used for marketing, personalization, or behavioral profiling.

(2) Advertising data is used by Google and its third-party ad partners to deliver and measure ads, in line with Google's policies. The site itself does not access, retain, or process the advertising data Google collects — the integration is the standard AdSense embed.

(3) Email correspondence is used solely to respond to your inquiry. Correction reports may be referenced in the public corrections log when a correction is published; reporter identity is opt-in (the default is anonymous attribution).

(4) No data is sold. No data is shared with third parties for marketing-list resale or similar purposes. No "look-alike audiences" are built. The site does not have anything to sell because it does not collect anything to monetize beyond what Google AdSense receives through standard ad serving.

Data Retention

Your Choices and Controls

You have several independent controls over data and advertising on this site.

GDPR, CCPA, and Equivalent Rights

Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have statutory rights including:

• Right to access the information held about you.
• Right to correction of inaccurate information.
• Right to deletion of your information.
• Right to portability of your information in a structured format.
• Right to object to certain processing.
• Right to opt out of sale or sharing of personal information.
• Right to non-discrimination for exercising privacy rights.

Because the editorial side of the site collects very little data (only what you submit by email, plus operational server logs), most editorial-side requests resolve quickly. Advertising-side data is held by Google and partners; the appropriate path for those requests is Google Ads Settings, My Ad Center, or a direct request to Google.

To exercise a right on the editorial side, email info@hvacloadcalc.org with subject "Privacy" and describe the request. Responses are provided within 30 days of receipt.

EEA, UK, and Swiss residents have GDPR rights. California residents have CCPA/CPRA rights. Brazilian residents have LGPD rights. Canadian residents have PIPEDA rights. All such requests receive the same response standard regardless of jurisdiction.

Children's Privacy (COPPA)

This site is not directed at children under 13 years of age, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

The content covers HVAC sizing, building science, and equipment selection — topics aimed at adult homeowners. There is no account system, no form requiring personal information beyond email correspondence (which presumes adult or parental consent), and no targeting of children.

If you believe a child under 13 has provided information by emailing the site, email info@hvacloadcalc.org with subject "Privacy" and the information will be deleted.

Per Google's policies, advertising on this site does not target children under 13 with personalized advertising.

International Data Transfers

Vercel and Google operate globally. When you load this site, data may be transferred to and processed in countries other than the one you are in, including the United States. Vercel and Google use standard contractual clauses, data privacy framework certifications, and other lawful mechanisms to govern those transfers.

For EU, UK, and Swiss users specifically: Google is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, the UK Extension to the DPF, and the Swiss-US DPF. The standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission also apply to transfers as a fallback safeguard.

Changes to This Policy

This policy may be updated to reflect changes in site practice, applicable law, or third-party vendor disclosures. Material changes are noted with an updated "Last Reviewed" date at the top of the page and a summary entry on the corrections log.

The Last Reviewed date indicates when the policy was most recently verified against actual site practice. If you see a Last Reviewed date older than three months, you can request an interim verification by emailing info@hvacloadcalc.org.

Contact for Privacy Matters

For any privacy-related inquiry — exercising your rights, asking about specific practices, reporting a concern, or anything else — email info@hvacloadcalc.org with subject "Privacy" and describe the matter.

Responses to privacy inquiries are acknowledged within 7 days and substantively addressed within 30 days. There is no other privacy contact channel; the editorial inbox processes all privacy requests directly.

This policy is the complete privacy statement for hvacloadcalc.org as of the Last Reviewed date below. The text is intentionally exhaustive so that an external reviewer (Google AdSense, a privacy regulator, a researcher, or any other party) can verify the site's practices against the documented text.