Our Methodology

Why we don't guess at local law

Permit thresholds and disposal rules are set city by city, county by county, and state by state. There is no way to reliably know, say, Austin's exact shed-permit square footage without someone actually checking Austin's current ordinance. So we don't guess. Every location-specific result carries a verification_status:

• Verified — we've confirmed a real, current official source (a government page, code document, or agency guidance) and shown it to you directly, with the date we checked it.
• Needs review — no confirmed source yet. The result you see reflects a general pattern seen across many U.S. jurisdictions, clearly labeled as such, not your city's specific rule.

Pages built on a "needs review" result are excluded from search engines (noindex) by design, even though the tool itself still works and still gives you a useful answer. We don't want a search engine sending someone to a page that reads as more authoritative than it actually is.

Where the general patterns come from

Our permit checker's default logic (for example, a commonly cited 120 sq ft shed threshold, or a 6 ft fence height threshold) reflects patterns that show up repeatedly across many U.S. cities' codes, not any one city's actual ordinance. It's a reasonable starting point for a conversation with your local building department, not a replacement for one.

Household hazardous waste guidance

Unlike permit thresholds, general hazardous-waste handling guidance (never pour chemicals down a drain, isolate damaged batteries, use approved sharps containers) is far more nationally consistent, and it's grounded in U.S. EPA household hazardous waste guidance. We still flag a small number of state-specific rules — like certain states regulating batteries more strictly — separately, with the same verified / needs-review labeling.

Electricity rates

Our appliance cost calculator defaults to a national average electricity rate, with real state-specific figures for a handful of states we've directly checked against U.S. EIA data. Every other state falls back to the national average, clearly labeled — and you can always type in your own rate from a recent utility bill.

Corrections

If you have first-hand knowledge of a city's actual permit ordinance or a state's specific disposal rule, let us know — that's exactly how a "needs review" page becomes a verified one.