Data sources & credits

Listings in Do I Need An HVAC? are compiled from the sources below. Each is named with the dataset it came from, the licence it is used under, and the credit that licence requires. Where a licence makes attribution a condition of use, that credit is reproduced here word for word.

• California Contractors State License Board (CSLB)

  CSLB licensed-contractor register, pattern-C slice copied 2026-05-10

  Licence:

  CA.gov public domain, qualified (CSLB 'Conditions of Use' resolves to the statewide policy)

  Last updated from source:

  2026-05-11

  CSLB's footer 'Conditions of Use' link resolves verbatim to href="https://www.ca.gov/use/" — this is a CHANNEL fact read off CSLB's own page, not a sibling inference. That page's Ownership section, verbatim: "In general, information presented on this website, unless otherwise indicated, is considered in the public domain. It may be distributed or copied as permitted by law. However, the State does make use of copyrighted data (e.g., photographs) which may require additional permissions prior to your use." No attribution condition is stated. NOTE the K41 CSLB/DRE carve-out: this contract settles the CREDIT ONLY. It does NOT hand CSLB the 'California DCA boards' REDISTRIBUTION verdict, which the carve-out excludes it from.

• City of Chicago — Business Licenses (Chicago Data Portal)

  City of Chicago business licences, HVAC slice, Chicago Data Portal extract

  Licence:

  Chicago Data Terms of Use — no licence grant, MANDATORY source-modification disclaimer

  Required credit:

  This site provides applications using data that has been modified for use from its original source, www.cityofchicago.org, the official website of the City of Chicago. The City of Chicago makes no claims as to the content, accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of any of the data provided at this site. The data provided at this site is subject to change at any time. It is understood that the data provided at this site is being used at one's own risk.

  Last updated from source:

  2026-05-11

  The 'USE OF DATA' section is MANDATORY and self-describing, verbatim: "Any user of this website providing any software application, or other secondary or derivative application using data supplied at this website shall do the following: Include the following disclaimer at the site where the software application, or other secondary or derivative application can be accessed or downloaded:" followed by the quoted text. Same SHAPE as the ratified Colorado data-portal entries: a source-attribution obligation WITHOUT a licence grant — the credit is owed even though no reuse right is affirmatively granted. Note the curly apostrophe in the source ('one's own risk') is normalised to ASCII here; render the sentence, do not re-punctuate it. Also verbatim and adverse: "The City may require a user of this data to terminate any and all display, distribution or other use of any or all of the data provided at this website for any reason" — a revocability term, not a credit term, named for the verdict owner. Retrieved with a declared anthropic-ai UA after WebFetch received 403; www.chicago.gov serves no robots.txt policy, so the preflight was a clean allow and the 403 was a client-fingerprint artefact, not a disallow.

• Connecticut eLicense / DPH

  Connecticut eLicense heating/cooling licence roster

  Licence:

  None stated (as-is public service)

  Last updated from source:

  2026-05-23

  No licence grant and no attribution requirement. Closest sentence, verbatim: "Publishable data made available on the Connecticut Open Data Portal shall be provided as a public service on an ‘as is’ basis."

• Florida DBPR

  Florida DBPR licensee download, pattern-C slice copied 2026-05-10

  Licence:

  NOT FOUND

  Credited as:

  Source: Florida DBPR — Florida DBPR licensee download, pattern-C slice copied 2026-05-10, https://www2.myfloridalicense.com/data-downloads/

  Last updated from source:

  2026-05-11

  NOT FOUND — both the downloads page and the data-file description PDF returned HTTP 403 to our operator class. The existing verdict records that the licensee-download readme imposes ZERO reuse restriction, but that text could not be RE-VERIFIED in this pass. Channel block, not an absence.

• Google Places — audited paid corpus (dated tags only)

  Google Places API business records, HVAC vertical, March 2026 audited pull

  Licence:

  Google Maps Platform Terms of Service (credentialed paid API)

  Required credit:

  Google Maps

  Last updated from source:

  2026-05-03

  Verbatim: "When displaying Places API data without a Google Map, you must include the Google logo, adhering to the provided style guidelines and attribution requirements." Google specifies the Google Maps logo, or the TEXT "Google Maps" where space is constrained. There is no "Powered by Google" string mandated for this case. Scope is the 51 dated audited tags ONLY — the bare `google_places` tag is a separate, unresearched tripwire authority.

• Internal (synthetic demo)

  Synthetic demonstration rows — not real businesses, held for internal display testing

  Licence:

  Internally originated

  Last updated from source:

  2026-07-21

  Not an external source and not a licence question. Two synthetic demonstration rows. Same class as the ratified 'Internal (manual/admin/curated)' and the CA_MUNICIPAL_BUSINESS_OPEN_DATA_CANARY sentinel: owes no credit, and — like the canary — must NEVER be rendered as provenance on a public data-credits page. If these rows are served, that is a data-quality question, not an attribution one.

• legacy_pre_path_y (unknown provenance)

  Pre-PathY legacy rows — originating authority not recorded at load time

  Licence:

  No licence asserted — provenance not recorded

  Credited as (provenance not recorded):

  Compiled from publicly available listings (pre-2026 legacy data)

  Last updated from source:

  2026-05-03

  IRRECOVERABLE, NOT UNRESEARCHED. The originating authority was never recorded at load time, so no licence can be asserted and no credit can honestly be given. This is not closable by research; it closes by re-deriving provenance where a source identifier survives on the row, or by de-serving the remainder. In campgroundsnearme alone this is 2,840 SERVED rows.

• Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry

  Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry licensed-contractor register

  Licence:

  Public domain (DLI disclaimer)

  Last updated from source:

  2026-05-11

  Verbatim: "All of the information and documents on the DLI website are in the public domain." The credit ask is verbatim: "If you link to DLI's site, we request that you do not pull text from the DLI's site or its publications without proper source attribution." — 'we request', and NO wording is specified, so there is no line to quote and attribution_required is false. Recorded because it is the nearest thing to a credit ask on this authority and a ruling may still choose to name DLI voluntarily.

• Self-serve (user submitted)

  Rows submitted by the business owner through /list-your-business

  Licence:

  Submitted by the listing owner under the site’s own Terms

  Last updated from source:

  2026-08-13

  Not an external authority. The row is contributed by the business itself through /list-your-business; the governing document is our own Terms. No third-party credit is owed.

• Self-serve (user submitted)

  Rows submitted by the business owner through the public listing form

  Licence:

  Submitted by the listing owner under the site’s own Terms

  Last updated from source:

  2026-05-26

  Not an external authority. The row is contributed by the business itself through /list-your-business; the governing document is our own Terms. No third-party credit is owed.

• US EPA — Lead-Safe Certified Firms (RRP rule)

  US EPA Lead-Safe Certified Firms register (RRP rule)

  Licence:

  US public domain (EPA Standard Open Data License, 17 U.S.C. §105)

  Last updated from source:

  2026-05-17

  EPA's Standard Open Data License, verbatim: "Unless otherwise specified, all data produced by the U.S EPA is by default in the public domain and is not subject to domestic copyright protection under 17 U.S.C. § 105 . More details on the U.S. Public Domain license are available here: http://www.usa.gov/publicdomain/label/1.0/" No attribution condition. The rest of the page is a warranty disclaimer and a metadata-limitations caution.

Source manifest: data-sources.json in doineedhvac. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.