Editorial Policy

This page is the contract with the reader. It is also the reason the build has a verification gate.

Rule 1 — no number without a source

Every incentive amount, cap, eligibility test and deadline in our tables must come from the issuing agency: a tax authority, a national or state energy department, a provincial body, or a regulated utility. Installer blogs, retailer pages and news articles are secondary sources and are used only to find the primary one.

Rule 2 — every table carries a check date

Each row shows when we last verified it. Cost tables are refreshed quarterly; incentive pages monthly. When a program closes, we keep the row and mark it closed with its end date, because “did this expire?” is the question readers actually arrive with.

Rule 3 — dates are separated on purpose

For any program with a deadline, we distinguish when the equipment must be installed or placed in service from when you claim it. Mixing those two up is the single most common error in this topic.

Rule 4 — we do not pretend to be a tradesperson

We do not claim hands-on installation experience we do not have. Where a page needs practical knowledge, we say what the claim rests on: a published survey, multiple quotes, or an agency document.

Rule 5 — the build enforces it

npm run check:publish fails if any live page references an unverified incentive or cost row, or still contains a [VERIFY] marker. We treat that as the gate for pointing a domain at the site, not as a nice-to-have.

Rule 6 — advertising never moves a number

Ads and affiliate links sit below the data. Rankings and figures are set before any revenue decision is made about the page.

Rule 7 — corrections are public

Reported errors are checked within a week, fixed, and logged on the corrections page with what changed and when.