Editorial Policy

This page describes the rules we hold ourselves to. It applies to every guide, review and comparison published on Hardscape Home Guide.

Last updated: September 2026.

Independence

Editorial decisions at Hardscape Home Guide are made by the editorial team alone. In practice that means:

• Advertisers and affiliate partners never see an article before it publishes and have no right of approval, amendment or removal.
• We do not accept payment, gifts, discounted materials or hospitality in exchange for coverage, a rating or a place in a comparison.
• Commercial relationships are disclosed on the page where they are relevant, not buried in a site-wide footer.
• A product’s affiliate status is never a factor in whether it is recommended, and we regularly recommend products we earn nothing from.

How we choose what to cover

We write about questions readers actually ask, judged from search behaviour, reader email, and the questions that come up repeatedly on real projects. We favour topics where the difference between good and bad information has a cost — a failed slab, a driveway that settles, furniture that does not fit — over topics where any answer will do.

We will decline a topic if we cannot source it properly. It is better to publish nothing on a subject than to publish a confident guess.

Authorship

Every article carries a named author. We do not publish under a house byline or a pseudonym. Where a guide makes technical claims about construction, it also carries the name of the technical reviewer who checked it and the date of that review.

Contributors write within their competence. Our writers are asked to flag anything outside their experience so it can be routed to a reviewer rather than guessed at.

Sourcing standards

We prefer primary sources and we link to them. In order of preference:

1. Manufacturer technical data — installation guides, datasheets, load and slip ratings.
2. Published standards and code references, such as ASTM and ACI documents in the United States, CSA standards in Canada, and AS/NZS standards in Australia and New Zealand.
3. Government and public-agency guidance — building authorities, transport and road departments, consumer regulators.
4. Peer-reviewed or industry-association research.
5. Experienced practitioners, quoted by name and role, where no published source exists.

We do not cite other content sites as authority, and we do not treat a product page’s marketing copy as a technical specification. Where sources disagree — and on base depth and joint spacing they frequently do — we say so and explain the range rather than picking the number that reads best.

Full detail is on our research and fact-checking page.

Review process

Construction guides pass through three stages before publication:

1. Draft by the writer, with sources collected as the draft is written rather than added afterwards.
2. Technical review by a practitioner with relevant site experience, who checks base preparation, drainage, thicknesses, restraint and regional applicability.
3. Editorial edit for accuracy of language, clarity, and whether the article answers the question it promises to answer.

Reviewers have the authority to block publication. If a reviewer and writer cannot agree, the article does not run until the disagreement is resolved by evidence.

Use of AI

We use software tools for research assistance, transcription, and checking our own text for clarity and repetition. We do not publish AI-generated articles, and we do not use AI to produce the technical judgements, measurements or recommendations on this site.

Every article is written and edited by a named human, and the named author and reviewer are accountable for its content. The illustrations and technical drawings on this site are generated to our specifications and checked against the dimensions stated in the text.

Corrections

When we get something wrong, we fix it and we say we fixed it.

• Factual errors are corrected promptly after verification.
• Substantive corrections carry a dated note at the foot of the article describing what changed. We do not silently rewrite published material.
• Typos and formatting fixes are made without a note.
• If a correction changes the conclusion of an article, the article is re-reviewed before it republishes.

Send corrections to [email protected].

Updates and review dates

Prices, product availability and code references change. Guides that contain cost ranges or specific product recommendations are reviewed at least annually; construction detail is re-reviewed whenever a relevant standard changes or a reader or reviewer raises a substantive concern. The “last reviewed” date on an article reflects a genuine review, not a cosmetic touch.

Complaints

If you believe we have fallen short of this policy, write to [email protected] with “complaint” in the subject line. Complaints are read by the editor, not filtered by the person the complaint concerns, and we will tell you what we concluded.