Editorial policy

Every calculator constant carries a label

Every registered calculator constant is classified as sourced, derived or assumed. Sourced means we hold the exact sentence and the date we read it. Derived means its arithmetic is documented. An assumed constant carries a disclosure sentence on the page where it is used.

Calculator modules fetch those constants through a registry lookup that fails the build when an identifier has no entry. This mechanical check covers registry references; ordinary dates, form limits and explanatory examples in page copy are outside that registry and are not represented as sourced figures.

A hole is better than a guess

Where a figure cannot be sourced honestly, this site does not invent a plausible one. It either asks you for your own local number or states plainly that no defensible figure exists and explains why.

That is most visible on cost, where a national installed-price average would be the single most commercially useful number we could publish and we have declined to publish it. It is also visible on slab moisture, where the industry number everybody repeats is not in any standard, and on slip resistance, where the federal body writing the accessibility rule says outright that no consensus measurement exists.

Uncertainty is stated, not smoothed

Outputs that depend on loose inputs are shown as ranges rather than single figures, and every tool names its own biggest swing factor on the page rather than in an appendix. Where a result excludes something material, the exclusions sit next to the number instead of in small print underneath.

Nothing here is a guarantee and the site does not use the vocabulary of guarantees. A calculator that returns a confident single figure from uncertain inputs is misrepresenting its own reliability, which is a subtler kind of wrong answer than an arithmetic error.

Manufacturer data outranks us, explicitly

Three things on this site defer entirely to the product you buy: the moisture limit, the cure and recoat windows, and the chemical resistance. In each case the tool asks for the manufacturer's number and works from that, because the manufacturer sets the limit and the manufacturer honours the warranty.

Where our own banding disagrees with a published build sheet, the build sheet is right. Our thicknesses are planning bands chosen so the resulting quantities are neither obviously short nor wasteful, and they are labelled as assumptions throughout.

No paid placement, no product ranking

There is no arrangement under which a manufacturer, distributor or contractor can influence what appears here. The site does not rank products, because we hold no independent test evidence and inventing a ranking would be exactly the authority-without-basis this policy exists to prevent.

Where a product characteristic genuinely decides an outcome — volume solids, pot life, the published moisture limit — the site tells you to read it off the data sheet, which is a verifiable document rather than an opinion.

How errors are handled

Corrections are made in the data module rather than in page text, so every page displaying an affected figure updates together. A figure whose cited source has changed is corrected and the change recorded, rather than silently overwritten.

Each figure is stamped with a date half a year out from when it was read, and reaching that date obliges us to open the source again. The contact page sets out what makes a correction quick to act on.

Who writes this

Andrew Flores is responsible for this site's research, calculations, source verification, and corrections. Every sourced constant traces to a named document opened on a stated date, and its quoted evidence is reproduced on the methodology page. Derived and assumed constants are labelled separately rather than described as sourced.

The registry records whether a calculator constant came from retrieved evidence, documented arithmetic, or an editable assumption.

Advertising and this page

Nothing in this build loads an advertising script or a consent-management platform. If that changes, this page and the privacy policy will be updated in the same deployment that introduces it. The policy describes what is being served on the day it is served, never what is planned.