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Editorial policy

What we do before a guide goes live, and what we will not do at all.

Last updated: 15 August 2026

How we choose topics

Every guide starts from a question an owner actually asks — in a forum thread, a search query, or an email to us. We do not publish to fill a content calendar, and we do not publish a page because a keyword tool says it has volume. If we cannot answer a question better than what already exists, we leave it alone.

Each page is assigned one primary question. Where two guides start to answer the same one, we merge them or narrow one of them rather than let both compete.

How we research

We prefer first-party sources for anything decisive, in roughly this order:

  1. Statistical agencies and government bodies — EIA, DOE and its Alternative Fuels Data Center, the IRS, national regulators.
  2. Code and standards authorities, and the published code text itself.
  3. Utilities' own tariff and programme pages.
  4. Vehicle and charger manufacturers' own specifications and support documentation.

Secondary sources — trade press, aggregators, other blogs — can supply context and point us at a primary document. They do not anchor a legal, safety or specification claim on this site.

Every article that carries figures ends with a Sources list giving the organisation, the document, the period the data covers and the date we last opened it. The assumptions behind our own arithmetic live onHow we calculate.

Dates, and what they mean

  • Published — when the guide first went live.
  • Updated — when the text last changed.
  • Facts checked — when a human last re-checked every figure on the page against its source. A page can be re-checked and come out unchanged; that still counts, and it is shown in the byline.

Data has its own date, separate from all three. The EIA publishes retail electricity prices about two months in arrears, so "the latest figure" and "this month's figure" are different things, and we say which we mean.

Electrical safety

This is the boundary we hold most carefully, because getting it wrong hurts someone.

What we explain: principles and vocabulary — why a breaker protects the wire rather than the appliance, what the 80% continuous-load rule is for, what a load calculation does, what a permit and inspection actually involve, and what a reasonable quote contains. Enough to ask an electrician better questions and to sanity-check the answer.

What we do not publish: step-by-step instructions for working inside a live panel, conductor sizing presented as a substitute for a designed installation, or any suggestion that a permit or inspection is optional. Where the answer depends on your specific service, we stop and say a licensed electrician takes over.

Codes vary by jurisdiction and change. US-specific rules are labelled as US-specific, and we flag where guidance does not transfer across a voltage or code boundary.

Technical review

Articles are written and checked bythe author named on them. Safety-critical guides — installation, load calculations, conductor sizing, permits — are the ones we most want a licensed electrician to review, and we are working to add named reviewers to them. Until a page carries a reviewer credit, it has not had one, and you should read it as an informed explanation rather than a design.

AI use

Stated plainly, because readers deserve to know:

  • Images. Some illustrations on this site are AI-generated. Where a hero image is generated rather than photographed, the credit under it says "Illustration" rather than "Photo". Diagrams and charts are drawn by us from the figures in the article.
  • Text. AI tools assist with drafting and editing. No figure, source, specification or safety statement is published on an AI tool's say-so: every number is traced to the source listed at the foot of the article, and checked by a human before it goes live.
  • What AI never does here. Invent a citation, supply a specification, or decide a safety boundary.

Independence

We do not accept payment for a review, for a ranking position, or to let an advertiser see an article before it publishes. Advertising is sold against the site, never against a conclusion. There are no affiliate links on the site today; if that changes, they will be disclosed on the page where they appear and your price will be identical either way.

Corrections

We fix errors in place and log the material ones publicly, with the date, the old claim and the new one. See the corrections page, ortell us if you have found something wrong — especially a code, permit or rebate detail.