Editorial policy

We publish explanations of physical principles, engineering design, operation, maintenance and troubleshooting. We do not publish product reviews, pricing, purchasing guidance, or country-specific regulatory or incentive information. Where a topic cannot be covered usefully without one of those, we leave the topic alone rather than half-cover it.

Every article is written to answer a real question in its first fifty words, then to explain the mechanism behind that answer. An article that cannot explain why is not finished.

This is the part of the policy we are strictest about, because it is the part readers cannot check for themselves at a glance.

• A figure appears only when we are confident it is correct and can attribute it to a named organisation, or when it follows from a derivation shown in the article itself.
• Sources are named in full. We link only to addresses we know exist; where we cannot confirm a specific page, we name the organisation without a link rather than guess at a URL.
• Product-specific values are not generalised. Temperature coefficients, cycle counts, cut-in speeds and capacities belong on a datasheet, and we point readers at theirs instead of handing them a number to memorise.
• A statistic we cannot trace is omitted. An explanation that teaches the mechanism is more useful than a number nobody can verify, and far more useful than a wrong one.
• Uncertain items are tracked, not quietly dropped. Claims that need a citation attached are recorded in a verification list that travels with the article until they are resolved.

Every diagram is drawn for the article it appears in and is checked for physical correctness, not just for looking plausible. Where a chart shows a shape rather than measured data — the way capacity fades with cycling, or how a power coefficient varies with tip-speed ratio — it is labelled illustrative on the chart itself, and its axes are often deliberately left unnumbered so that no one can read a value off it that we did not measure.

Every figure carries a text description for screen readers, and its dimensions are fixed in the page so that nothing moves as it loads.

We use AI-assisted tools for drafting and illustration. Every article is reviewed and fact-checked by a human editor before publication.

We do not invent author personas, credentials or biographies. Articles are published under the site’s editorial identity rather than under a fictional expert’s name, because a byline that cannot be verified is worth less than no byline at all.

Each article shows the date it was last reviewed, not only the date it was first published. A review means the claims were checked again against their sources. Fixing a typo does not move that date; that would be claiming an accuracy check we did not do.

Articles are revisited when a source we relied on is updated, when a reader reports a problem, or on a periodic sweep through the archive — whichever comes first.

If something here is wrong, we want to fix it. Send the article title and the specific claim through the contact page or to hello@wattcurious.com.

Substantive corrections — anything that changes what a reader would conclude — are noted on the article itself rather than made silently, and the review date moves. Typographical fixes are made without a note. We do not delete an article to make an error disappear.

WattCurious accepts no sponsored articles, paid placements, affiliate arrangements or product samples, and no third party reviews or approves content before publication.

The site is intended to be supported by advertising. When advertising is introduced it will be clearly distinguishable from editorial content, it will never be styled to look like an article or a recommendation, and nothing on the site will encourage clicks on it. Advertisers will have no influence over what is written, what is published, or where it appears.

Photovoltaic arrays operate at voltages that can be lethal even when disconnected from the grid, battery banks can deliver very large currents into a short circuit, and refrigerant systems are pressurised. Articles describe how equipment works and how faults present themselves. They are not instructions to carry out work that requires a qualified, licensed professional, and they are not written as a substitute for one.