What this desk will not write
A refuse list is a boundary, and a boundary is the cheapest quality control a publisher has. Every refusal below has a reason that survives an afternoon of thought. If a page on this site ever drifts into a refused topic, that page is a bug — send it to us and it comes down.
Checked 2026-09-10 · refusals in force
The refuse list
| Refused | Reason |
|---|---|
| Product reviews & picks | Ranking pipe brands buys traffic and sells trust. We give sizing rules; you pick the product that meets them. |
| Affiliate links | A desk that earns per click cannot be checked against its sources and believed at the same time. |
| Foundation & footing advice | Touching a structure without a local engineer is how wet basements become cracked basements. That is someone else's license. |
| Permit shortcuts | "Just do it without a permit" is advice with a bill attached. We point at your code, we never route around it. |
| "News" about drainage | No daily roundups, no "this week in stormwater." This desk has no newsroom; pretending otherwise is a soft 404 of a site. |
| Guaranteed outcomes | No page promises "your yard will never flood." Soil and storms do not honor promises. We state what a design can and cannot do. |
| Content for content | If a page cannot state its extra inch over the top search results, it is not written. The test lives in the desk. |
What we do instead
Numbers with units and traps. Boundary tables. Worked arithmetic you can re-run with your own yard. Sources you can open. And a dated stamp on every page so you know when a figure was last checked. If that sounds like less than a "complete guide," good: complete guides are how the internet buried drainage answers under ads.
Sources
- This desk's own method — swale.top/method/
- Minnesota Stormwater Manual — stormwater.pca.state.mn.us
- US EPA NPDES — epa.gov/npdes