Notes on what the record shows
Each note here exists because a comparison that ought to be easy is not, and because the reason it is not can be shown from the record rather than asserted.
The tables on this site publish what manufacturers declare. These notes are about what the tables reveal once the declarations are lined up: fields that are declared in incompatible units, figures that are published without the method that produced them, and columns where the value everyone publishes is the one that settles the least.
Nothing here is a review and nothing here is a ranking. Every count in a note is measured from the same release the tables are drawn from, in the same build, so a note cannot go on asserting something the record has stopped supporting. Where a note’s evidence disappears, the sentence resting on it disappears with it.
Every note
Each line below is the finding, not the subject: what the note concluded once every declaration in the release had been lined up. The table under it is what the conclusion was computed from.
- How far a floor runs before a transition — How far a floating floor may run before a transition is required, what each maker declares, and why some declarations are not in the same unit.
- Two moisture tests, and the floors they disagree on — Slab moisture is declared by two tests that do not convert. Ranked by one, the strictest floors here are not the strictest floors ranked by the other.
- Wear layer depth is the number nobody can check — Depth is the wear layer figure every product page leads with. What the layer is made of, and how it did in an abrasion test, are published far less often.
- The joint every maker declares and almost none names — Makers declare a joint and mostly describe the motion an installer makes rather than naming the mechanism, which is the part a reader could look up.
- Attached pad: the column that says what it is — A pad bonded to the plank is usually recorded as a yes. Its material is recorded far less often, and the material is what decides how it behaves.
- What a lifetime warranty is worth once labor is read — The term on the front of a warranty separates these documents far less than the labor clause behind it, and every labor clause here has a condition.
- A slip figure is not a fact without its method — The slip numbers here come from more than one test, and the tests do not measure the same quantity. Ranking them in one column invents a comparison.
- An impact rating belongs to the building — An impact rating is measured on an assembly, so the spread between declared figures is largely the ceiling underneath rather than the floor on top of it.
What each note was measured from
A note is only as good as the cells underneath it, so the cells are counted here instead of being described inside the note. The three columns on the right divide the fields an argument rests on into what the manufacturers declare, what they decline to declare, and what nobody has read a document for yet. The third of those is a shortfall on this side, not the maker’s.
A note with a large withheld count is not a weaker note. It is often the opposite: the absence is the finding, and the argument is about what the industry does not publish rather than about what it does.
What each note was measured from: the fields its argument rests on, and how many of those cells the makers actually declare.
5 columns. The table scrolls sideways inside its own box; the row headings and the column headings stay in place while it does.
| Note | Fields it rests on | Cells declared | Cells the maker withholds | Cells not yet read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| How far a floor runs before a transition | max_span | 14 | 2 | 0 |
| Two moisture tests, and the floors they disagree on | subfloor_rh_limit_pct, subfloor_rh_method, subfloor_cacl_limit_lb, subfloor_cacl_method | 48 | 16 | 0 |
| Wear layer depth is the number nobody can check | wear_layer_mil, wear_layer_chemistry, d4060_cycles | 27 | 17 | 4 |
| The joint every maker declares and almost none names | locking_system, edge_profile | 29 | 3 | 0 |
| Attached pad: the column that says what it is | attached_pad, pad_material, pad_thickness_mm | 33 | 15 | 0 |
| What a lifetime warranty is worth once labor is read | warranty_res_years, warranty_labor_covered, warranty_prorated, warranty_exclusions | 62 | 2 | 0 |
| A slip figure is not a fact without its method | dcof_value, dcof_method, dcof_condition | 18 | 24 | 6 |
| An impact rating belongs to the building | iic_value, iic_assembly, stc_value | 20 | 22 | 6 |
How these are written
A note starts from a query against the published dataset, not from a subject. If the query returns nothing worth reporting, there is no note; if it returns something, the finding is stated first and the table it came from is printed underneath, so a reader can check the sentence against the rows rather than take it on trust.
No note carries a hand-typed count. The quantities are computed from the release when the page is built, which is the same rule the rest of this site runs on and for the same reason: a number copied into a paragraph goes stale in silence while the table beside it moves on.