Last updated September 2026.
What's collected, and why
- Your answers (like "tiny house", "comfortable") live in the page address so the guide can size itself. They're stored only if you tap "Get a link" or "Email me this guide", so the link keeps working.
- Location: if you use "Use my location" or type a ZIP, it's used to look up sun hours. Only a ZIP code or rounded coordinates are kept, and only with a saved guide.
- Email: only if you ask for a guide by email or for updates when a pick or its price changes. It's used for that and nothing else. Every email has a one-click unsubscribe.
- Suggestions and setup reports you send, including an email if you add one, so you can be credited.
- What you tell the guides and tools: your location (a ZIP code, a state, or coordinates rounded to about a kilometer), your answers, and calculator inputs are kept in one encrypted cookie on your browser for a year (and in your account, if you have one), so you never type them twice. It's used only to size things for you. See it all, or forget any part, on What's remembered. Signing out clears it from the browser.
- An account, if you make one: your email, a password (stored scrambled), your location, the setups you save, your checklist ticks, whether you want update notes, and which pages you used while signed in. You can download all of it or delete it all from your account page at any time.
- Which steps get used: a random visit number in a first-party cookie counts how far people get through the questions and guides, so the confusing parts can be fixed. It isn't linked to your name, email or IP address, and it's never shared.
- Where visits come from: on your first page, the kind of site that sent you (for example "Google", "Reddit" or "ChatGPT"), not the address of the page you came from or what you searched.
- Crawlers: daily totals of visits by search and AI crawlers, per section of the site. No addresses are kept.
- Outbound clicks: when you tap a store button, the site records which product and page it came from (not who you are) before sending you to the store.
- Checklist ticks are saved in your own browser, not on the site.
Affiliate links and other sites
Some links go to stores that pay a commission if you buy. Those stores and affiliate networks use their own cookies to credit the sale, under their own privacy policies. As an Amazon Associate, this site earns from qualifying purchases.
What's never done
Your information is never sold. There are no ad trackers and no third-party analytics.
Your choices
Unsubscribe from any email with one click. To have a saved guide, suggestion or setup report removed, send a note and it'll be deleted.