Trust
Editorial standards
Hometriva publishes numbers people spend real money against. These are the rules that govern how those numbers are produced, labeled and corrected.
Verified August 2026
Our rules
Verified and modeled are labeled differently, always
A verified figure comes from a published fee schedule, statute, code section or official portal, and carries a link to that source. A modeled figure is produced by the Hometriva cost model from labor, material, regulatory and permit inputs. Modeled figures are labeled as estimates in the interface, never presented as quoted prices.
The permitting authority is named, not assumed
Postal city is not jurisdiction. Every permit claim names the authority that actually issues the permit for that area — often the county rather than the city — and shows a confidence tag reflecting how precisely we resolved it.
Sources sit next to the claim they support
Citations appear directly under the section they back, not only in a footer list, so the reader can check the specific number rather than the page as a whole.
Regulation is versioned in time
When a law changes, the old rule is retained with its effective dates rather than overwritten. Pages state which version applies today and flag upcoming changes with their effective date.
AI structures, it does not invent
Language models are used to structure, summarize and format data that already exists in our datasets. They are never used to generate prices, fees, code requirements or statutory claims.
No pay-for-placement in the data
Advertising and lead-generation partners cannot influence a cost range, a permit answer, a material recommendation or the order of comparison tables. Commercial units are visually separated from the data.
Pages that cannot meet the standard are not indexed
A quality gate scores every generated page. Pages that fall below the threshold are marked noindex until the underlying data improves, rather than published as thin filler.
Corrections are public and fast
Anyone can report an error. Substantive corrections are applied to the page and reflected in the review date.
Sources we accept
- • State statutes, building codes and adopted local amendments
- • Published municipal and county permit fee schedules and portals
- • Federal statistical series (BLS wage data, Census permit and housing surveys)
- • Manufacturer published specifications for material performance and service life
- • Aggregated homeowner-reported costs, shown only at five or more reports
Review cadence
Cost models are re-based when the underlying wage and material inputs move materially. Regulatory content is reviewed when a code cycle or statute changes, and upcoming changes are published before their effective date. The current verification pass is August 2026.
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