Editorial
Editorial Standards
Citation policy
When we state a number or a rule — how a load calc is run, how refrigerant has to be handled, what an efficiency rating means, what the code requires, what Birmingham's climate actually does — that statement has to come from the people who write the standard, not from someone repeating it. We pull from these authorities, in this order:
- Manufacturer service manuals.
- ACCA Manual J / D / S / T standards.
- U.S. Department of Energy guidance.
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Section 608, ENERGY STAR).
- NIST and NOAA climate data for Birmingham AL.
- Alabama Board of Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Contractors.
- ASHRAE position documents and standards.
What we leave out matters just as much: we will not point a reader at another blog, a content mill, or a competitor's page that was built to chase rankings rather than to be correct.
AI disclosure
We sometimes use AI tools to help draft a first pass — in both English and Spanish. That draft is only a starting point. A human editor goes through it line by line, and a licensed Alabama HVAC technician checks it for accuracy, code, and the way a real tech would say it, before anything goes live. Nothing an AI writes reaches this site on its own.
Think of it like a draft handed to an editor before print: the tool may type the first version, but the responsibility, the corrections, and the final word stay with our editorial team — and every one of these standards still applies.
Correction policy
Get something wrong and we own it. The fix goes right on the page, with the date we made it, so the record shows what changed and when. There is no quiet editing behind the scenes. Any correction that shifts what the page actually means gets its own correction line — and that holds for the Spanish version of the page too.
To request a correction, email editorial@lockwellhvac.com with the page URL and the issue.
What we will not publish
- Set dollar amounts, fixed-rate quotes, or “starting at” pricing posted online — the real number depends on the job.
- Anything offered as “free” in writing, whether it is a service call or an estimate.
- Promises about how fast we will show up (“in 30 minutes,” “guaranteed same day”).
- Invented technician credentials, a named bio for someone who does not work here, or staged photos standing in for real staff.
- Reviews or testimonials that were faked, paid for, or staged.
- Health or medical claims tied to HVAC equipment — a furnace or AC is not a medical device, and we do not give health advice.
- “Family-owned since [year]” or any founding-year claim we cannot actually back up.
- Another contractor's brand or name dressed up as if it were ours.
Service across language and community
We dispatch to Spanish-speaking households all over the north end of Birmingham, so we publish in English and in Spanish (Lockwell HVAC en español). Here is the part that matters: there is no “lite” version. Every standard on this page — primary-source citations, the correction policy, the AI disclosure, the list of things we refuse to claim — applies word for word in Spanish exactly as it does in English. The Spanish page is reviewed by the same editor and checked against the same code by the same licensed Alabama technician, so a homeowner reading en español is reading the same vetted facts, not a thinner translation of them.