How the work gets done

Every guide on this site is researched and edited by Mike, the person who runs it. This page explains what that process is, what it is not, and how to call out a mistake.

Where the facts come from

In order of preference: government and standards sources (EPA, USDA, CDC, DOE, NREL, FEMA, NFPA summaries, state environmental agencies, state statutes and county codes), university extension publications, manufacturer manuals and specification sheets, and then long-term owner reports from forums and owner groups. Marketing pages are treated as claims to check, not sources. Where a guide leans on a specific rule (a code clearance, a health guideline, a physical constant), the rule is named in the text and the source appears in the "Sources and further reading" list at the end of the article.

Rules the writing follows

• No invented experience. I am doing this research while planning my own move off-grid. Guides are researched, not memoirs. When I have personally used or tested something, the article says so; when I have not, it does not pretend otherwise.
• No unsupported "most people" claims. If I cannot point to data or a source, the writing says "a common problem reported by owners" rather than "most owners".
• Checked links. Outbound sources are verified to exist when the article is published. If you find a dead one, it is a bug; tell me.
• Safety topics get the strictest treatment. Electrical, drinking water, sanitation, heating, and fire-safety articles stick closest to primary sources, and they say plainly when a job belongs to a licensed professional or the local inspector.
• Numbers trace to the calculators. Sizing guidance in articles uses the same assumptions as the site's calculators, and each calculator page states its formula and assumptions.

How drafting works

I use modern research and writing tools, including AI, the same way I use a spreadsheet: to do the assembly work. The topics, the standards the writing must meet, the source rules above, the review, and the corrections are mine. What I care about is whether the finished guide is accurate, specific, and useful; every article carries a dated "About this guide" block and a sources list so you can judge that for yourself.

Local knowledge beats my desk

The off-grid laws pages carry a "verified by a local" system: residents, owners, builders, and officials can confirm a county page or correct it, I review every submission, and approved corrections are published with credit. Rules change and counties differ from their own websites; people who live there are the best check I have.

How sources are ranked, and what gets thrown out

Sources are not treated as equal. The laws database sorts every citation into tiers automatically, and the tier decides whether you ever see it. Primary means the rule at its origin: a state statute or administrative code, a county or municipal code portal, a state agency, a federal agency. Secondary means a university extension publication or a regional authority summarizing a primary rule. Tertiary means a news article, an encyclopedia entry, a legal-directory page, or a commercial blog rewriting somebody else's summary. Tertiary sources are never displayed as citations. They can point me at a rule, but the rule has to be confirmed at its source before it is published.

There is a fourth category the checker looks for specifically: the mismatch. A page about a Vermont county citing a government host from Wisconsin is a mismatch, and it is exactly the kind of error that is easy to make and hard to spot by reading. Those are caught by comparing the host and the page title against the jurisdiction the page is about, and they are never shown. Links are also re-checked in bulk for whether they still resolve. A server answering 403 to an automated request is not treated as a dead link, because plenty of government hosts refuse datacenter traffic while working perfectly for a person with a browser; treating those as dead would quietly strip good citations.

What the verification badges mean

Every jurisdiction page in the laws database carries a badge, and the badge is a claim about evidence, not a claim about confidence. Verified by a local means a resident, owner, builder, or official confirmed the page and I reviewed and accepted it. Primary-source verified means at least two primary sources back the page and it carries a review date. Partly sourced means some dimensions are cited and others are not yet. Research in progress means treat it as a starting point and call the office. Local rule (inherited) means the page is showing the state or county rule because the town has no separate one on record. A page with a weak badge is not hidden, because a landowner is better served by an honest "not yet confirmed" than by a page that quietly implies more certainty than exists.

The same principle governs numbers. Dollar ranges and timelines get stripped from a jurisdiction page unless there is a source behind them, because a specific-sounding figure with nothing under it is worse than no figure at all. If a page tells you a permit costs a particular amount, that came from somewhere you can check.

How the calculators are built and checked

Every calculator shows a "How this calculator works" box with its formula and its assumptions, and those boxes are not written by hand. They are generated from the calculator's own code, so the explanation and the arithmetic cannot drift apart: if the maths changes and the explanation does not, the mismatch shows up immediately. Building that extraction was worth it on the first pass, because it surfaced a wire-gauge FAQ that named the wrong conductor size against the calculator's own output. The calculator was right and the prose was wrong, and nobody would have caught it by reading.

The assumptions themselves lean conservative on purpose. System efficiency, depth of discharge, and derating factors are set toward the pessimistic end of the realistic range, because the failure mode of an undersized off-grid system is a cold house and a dead bank, while the failure mode of a slightly oversized one is spending more than you had to. Where a calculator makes that trade, the box says so. None of them is a substitute for a licensed electrician, a soils test, or a local inspector, and each says that too.

How gear gets recommended

Gear blocks are matched to an article's subject, and an article with no relevant gear carries none. Selection is based on documented specifications and long-run owner reports; it is never based on what pays best, and a product does not appear because a program asked for it. Every product carries a label saying which of three things is true: researched from specifications and owner reports, personally owned and used, or personally tested. That distinction is the whole point, and collapsing it would make the label worthless.

Prices are not invented. Where a price is not available from a source that can be cited, none is shown rather than a guess or a stale number dressed up as current. The site earns commission on some outbound links, which is disclosed on the affiliate disclosure page and again in every block that contains one. Commission does not change what appears or the order it appears in.

What every article has to carry

A guide cannot publish without sources. The requirement is enforced when the article is saved, not left to discipline: between three and six citations, checked server-side to confirm they resolve, and rejected if they do not. Every published article carries a byline, an "About this guide" block with the date it was last reviewed, and a "Sources and further reading" list. Prevalence claims - the "most people", "in most cases", "usually" family - are blocked unless something supports them, because they are the easiest kind of sentence to write and the hardest to defend.

Terms that do real work in a guide are linked to the glossary on first use, so a reader who does not already know what depth of discharge or a duty cycle is does not have to leave to find out. Where an article gives sizing guidance, the numbers come from the same assumptions the calculators use, so the site does not contradict itself between a page and a tool.

What this site does not do

It does not give legal advice. The laws database tells you what the public record appears to say and points you at the office to call; it is a research starting point, not an opinion, and no page here substitutes for your county planning department or an attorney. It does not give engineering sign-off: a calculator output is a planning number, and a real system needs a licensed professional and a local inspector. It does not run sponsored posts, and it does not publish a review of a product nobody has looked at properly. It does not use manufactured urgency, and it does not soften a genuine hazard to keep an article comfortable - electrical, water, carbon monoxide, and fire risks are stated plainly, because the test that matters is whether a reader can act on the information without getting hurt.

Corrections

If something here is wrong, tell me. Corrections get fixed in the article itself, the "last reviewed" date updates, and material fixes are noted. I would rather be corrected than be wrong, and this site is built on that trade.