How We Check Numbers

These are the rules every article on The Repair Brief is written and checked against. They exist so you can tell where a number came from and how old it is.

1. One document per claim

Every dollar figure, deadline, percentage or coverage term is read from a source you can open: the manufacturer’s published warranty, the city’s fee schedule, the state statute or regulation, the insurer’s policy form, or an itemized quote we collected. The source is named under the headline and again in the “Where these numbers come from” box at the end of the article. If a figure has no document behind it, it does not run.

2. A date on every article

The “Checked” date under the headline is the day the editor last confirmed the cited document still said what the article says. Warranty terms, permit fees and policy forms change; the date tells you how fresh the check is.

3. Worked examples, not universal rules

The numbers in the text are one specific case: a stated quote, a stated purchase year, a stated state or city. They are there to show the method. Your own answer comes from the calculator, which applies the same document to your inputs. We do not turn one example into a rule of thumb for everyone.

4. The calculator is part of the article

Each calculator is built from the same document as the text, with the example’s inputs as its defaults. If the calculator and the text ever disagree, that is a correction, and we log it.

5. No affiliate picks, no sponsored verdicts

We do not recommend brands, contractors or insurers, and we do not earn commissions on anything we mention. Advertising on the site is served by an ad network and is labelled; it has no bearing on what we write. See the advertising disclosure.

6. Corrections are public

When a figure changes or we got one wrong, the article is updated and the change is recorded on the corrections page with the date and what changed. Readers who spot an error can write to [email protected]; we reply to every correction request.

7. Tools we use

We use software to draft text, build calculators and check arithmetic. The editor reads every cited document and signs off on every published figure; nothing is published that the editor has not checked against the source.