Good flooring advice is mostly a sourcing problem: knowing which authority owns which answer, and quoting it faithfully. Here is how a guide gets made.
Our sourcing hierarchy
Not all sources are equal. We work from the top of this list down, and we tell you where a given fact sits:
- Primary standards & regulators — the body that defines the thing: NWFA, NHLA, NWFA/NOFMA, NFCA, CARB, US EPA, ANSI, NALFA, FloorScore. This is where technical and regulated claims must come from.
- Manufacturer technical documentation — spec sheets, warranties, and installation instructions, used for how a specific product is built or must be installed — and read critically, because the manufacturer is an interested party.
- Our own analysis — comparisons, rules of thumb, and judgement calls, clearly labelled as ours rather than as a standard.
How we verify
Before a technical claim is published, we check it against the primary source and record the date we did so. That date is published on the guide as its “last verified” stamp. Where a standard specifies a number — an emission limit, a grade definition, a wear-layer measurement — we cite the number to the body that sets it, so you can confirm it yourself.
It’s the last time a human re-checked the guide’s technical claims against the source — not merely the day we edited a sentence. It’s the honest signal of how fresh the facts are.
How we write
Every guide is answer-first: the direct answer sits in the opening, so a reader (or a search engine) gets the point immediately, with the reasoning and citations below. We write for two people at once —
- the homeowner, who needs the plain-language version and the practical trade-offs; and
- the professional, who needs the grade, the standard, and the source.
We also write with restraint: Canadian and American spellings both appear across our audience, measurements are given in the units the trade actually uses, and we avoid hype, absolute “best” claims, and manufactured urgency.
What we deliberately avoid
- Naming a single “best” brand or product.
- Affiliate links, sponsored placement, or pay-to-rank.
- Presenting opinion as if it were a published standard.
- Stale specifics without a verification date.
Corrections & feedback
If you spot an error — a moved standard, an out-of-date figure, a claim that doesn’t match the source — we want to know. As the site grows we’ll add a dedicated corrections channel; in the meantime, corrections are treated as first-class work: we re-check against the primary source, fix the page, and update its “last verified” date.
Last reviewed: 21 July 2026 · Process may evolve as the library grows; the editorial standard will not loosen.