Editorial policy

Purpose of this policy

This page sets out how StairRunner.co decides what to publish, how it verifies what it publishes, and what it will never do. It exists so that a reader — or a supplier, or a journalist, or anyone else with a reason to check — can hold the site to a specific, written standard rather than a vague claim of trustworthiness. If a guide on this site ever falls short of what is written here, that is a defect to report through the contact page, not a hidden exception.

Accuracy

Factual claims must be supportable. Measurements, formulas and material properties are checked against manufacturer documentation, trade association guidance or published standards. Where sources disagree, we present the disagreement rather than picking the convenient answer. A claim that cannot be traced to a defensible source is either cut or rewritten as a qualified statement of judgement rather than presented as fact.

We distinguish carefully between three kinds of statement on this site: a verifiable fact (a formula, a defined term, a documented material property), a range drawn from general trade practice (a typical tread depth, a common margin width), and an editorial judgement (which installation method suits a given household). Only the first is presented as settled; the second is always given as a range with the reasons it varies; the third is labelled as guidance, not fact.

Sourcing

We prefer, in roughly this order:

1. Manufacturer technical documentation and warranty terms
2. Trade associations and standards bodies
3. Government agencies and building code authorities
4. Established professional and technical publications

We do not cite other search-optimised content sites as authorities simply because they rank. Where a source is linked, it is because it supports a specific claim on the page. We do not link to a source merely to appear well-referenced, and we do not quote a source out of the context in which it was written.

Uncertainty and jurisdiction

Staircase geometry, handrail requirements, fire performance ratings and installation obligations vary by country and often by locality. Guidance here is general. Where a statement could be read as a code requirement, we mark it as jurisdiction-dependent and direct readers to confirm locally. We do not state code requirements as universal facts.

The same caution applies to product-specific claims. Fibre performance, backing durability and warranty terms differ between manufacturers and even between product lines from the same manufacturer. Where we describe a general property of a fibre or construction — for example that wool resists crushing well — we are describing a tendency, not certifying a specific product you may be considering.

Safety

Stairs are the highest-risk circulation surface in a home. We do not publish shortcuts that compromise the security of a fixing, and we say explicitly when a task warrants a professional. Where a cleaning product or method could damage a material, the caution appears with the instruction, not in a footnote. Where a decision genuinely depends on seeing the staircase in person — a structural concern, an unusual geometry, a load-bearing question — we say so rather than offering a generic answer that might not apply.

No fabrication

We do not invent experts, authors, credentials, reviews, testimonials, statistics, survey results, prices, certifications, awards, partnerships, case studies or manufacturer claims. Content is attributed to the StairRunner.co editorial team unless a named contributor with verifiable relevant experience has written or reviewed it. This applies equally to small details — an invented "average" price or a plausible-sounding but unverified statistic is as much a violation of this policy as a fabricated testimonial.

How guides are structured

Every substantial guide opens with a short, direct answer to its main question, followed by the detail needed to act on that answer correctly. We favour concrete decision rules, worked examples and named trade-offs over general encouragement. Where a guide includes a calculation, such as those behind our runner length calculator, the underlying formula is shown on the page rather than hidden inside a tool, so a reader can verify it independently.

Independence

Editorial decisions — what to cover, what to recommend, what to warn against — are made without reference to any commercial relationship. No supplier, manufacturer or advertiser has editorial input into guide content, and none will in future without that involvement being disclosed on the affected page.

AI assistance

AI tools may be used for research organisation, drafting support and editing. No page is published without human review of its factual content, and responsibility for every published claim rests with the editorial team, not a tool. Where an AI-assisted draft introduces a claim that cannot be sourced, that claim is removed during review rather than published on the assumption it is probably correct.

Commercial content

The site currently carries no sponsored placements or affiliate links. If commercial relationships are introduced, they will be disclosed on the affected page, labelled distinctly from editorial content, and will not influence the substance of guidance. We will not accept payment for a favourable assessment.

Updates and review

Guides are reviewed periodically and whenever standards, materials or common practice change. We change an update date only when the content has meaningfully changed — refreshing dates without substantive edits misleads readers, and we treat it as a violation of this policy. When a review finds no change is needed, the existing date stands.

Reviews specifically check for: formulas or figures that trade practice has moved past, links to guides that have since been restructured, and claims that read as more definite than the underlying evidence supports. Any of these found during a review is corrected regardless of whether a reader has reported it.

How we handle conflicting trade guidance

Where two credible sources genuinely disagree — for instance on a typical waste allowance for a patterned material, or on how a particular fibre performs under heavy traffic — we say so on the page rather than silently choosing one. A guide such as wool versus synthetic stair runners exists precisely because the honest answer to "which is better" depends on stated, named trade-offs rather than a single winner, and presenting it any other way would misrepresent the underlying evidence.

How figures and formulas are checked before publication

Before a calculation is published, we work through it with real numbers, not only symbols, to confirm it produces a sensible result across a range of staircase sizes, including deliberately awkward ones such as a very short flight or one with an unusually deep tread. Where a guide references a formula used elsewhere on the site, such as the method behind the runner length calculator, we check the two are stated consistently rather than drifting apart after an edit to one but not the other.

The same discipline applies to worked examples. An example in a guide is checked against the formula it is illustrating, not written independently and left to imply that it agrees. Where we later find an inconsistency between an example and the underlying method — whether reported by a reader or found during review — it is treated as a correction, not a cosmetic fix.

What counts as a material error

Not every imprecision requires the same response. We treat a factual error — a wrong formula, a mischaracterised material property, a broken calculation — as material and correct it immediately on verification. A stylistic or clarity issue, where the underlying information is correct but poorly explained, is queued for the next revision of that page rather than treated as urgent, unless a reader indicates it has caused a real mistake in their project, in which case we treat it with the same urgency as a factual error.

Internal consistency across guides

Because many guides on this site reference the same underlying mechanics — tread depth, riser height, waste allowance, margin width — we maintain those definitions consistently rather than letting each guide define them independently. When a definition changes, we check every guide that depends on it, not only the page where the change originated. This is slower than editing pages in isolation, but it is the only way to guarantee that a reader moving between, say, the width guide and the measurement guide is not given two subtly different definitions of the same term.

How this policy itself is maintained

This page is reviewed alongside the rest of the site and updated when our practice changes, not only when a reader asks a question about it. If a future change to how we work — a new contributor, a change to sourcing, a commercial relationship — would alter anything stated here, this page is updated first, before that change takes effect on any guide, so the written standard never lags behind actual practice. Questions about any part of this policy are welcome through the contact page.

Reporting a suspected policy breach

If you believe a page falls short of any standard set out here — an unsourced statistic, an undisclosed commercial mention, a jurisdictional claim stated as universal — tell us directly rather than assuming it was deliberate. We treat these reports as seriously as factual corrections, and where a genuine breach is found, we fix the page and review whether the same issue appears elsewhere on the site before considering it closed.

Why we publish this at all

Most sites in this space do not publish anything like this policy, and readers have no way to know how a guide was actually produced or checked. We think a site that asks people to trust it with decisions involving real money and real safety should say plainly how it works, what it checks, and what it refuses to do, rather than relying on a general impression of professionalism. This page is that statement, and we would rather be held to it and occasionally fall short in a way we then correct than avoid writing it down at all.

If any part of it reads as vague or unverifiable, that is worth telling us too — a standards page that cannot itself be checked would be a poor advertisement for the standards it describes.

Scope of this policy

This policy applies to every guide, glossary entry and reference page on the site. It does not apply to third-party content we may link to, which is governed by its own publisher's standards, not ours — a link is a pointer to a source, not an endorsement of everything else that source has ever published.

Corrections

Report an error through the contact page with the page address and, where possible, a source. Verified corrections are applied promptly and, where the error was material, noted on the page. We would rather be told about a mistake and fix it than have it stand uncorrected, and we do not treat correction requests as criticism to be managed rather than acted on.