About PlainTools

A lot of genuinely useful information is already public and already free. The problem is rarely that the data does not exist — it is that getting an answer out of it means learning a government portal, downloading a spreadsheet, reading a PDF that cannot be searched, or doing arithmetic nobody enjoys doing twice.

Each tool here closes one of those gaps. You enter what you have, and you get the specific answer back in one step, with the source named on the result. There are 3 tools so far, and they do not have to relate to each other: a tool belongs here if people need the answer, the answer can be produced accurately from a citable free source, and what already exists is weak.

Before anything is written, the source is checked directly: does it return usable data, is it free of licence restrictions and per-lookup costs, and can a browser query it without a server in between? If the answer is no, the tool does not get built. For a tool that is pure calculation, the formula has to be published somewhere citable, and it gets worked by hand and checked against an independent reference before it ships.

Then the inputs where the tool cannot answer are found deliberately, before the interface is designed — the addresses with no coverage, the values that break the formula, the records that were never digitised. Those cases get an explanation of why the data is missing and the nearest useful answer instead, because an unexplained blank looks like a broken tool.

Only after the tool has been run against real inputs, including the ones that fail, and cross-checked against the official source, does it go live.

Every answer traces to a public dataset or a documented formula. Each tool page has a section naming its source, explaining how the page obtains the answer, and stating the limits of that source — its resolution, its assumptions, and what it must not be used for.

Results are produced in your browser at the moment you ask for them. Your query goes directly from your browser to the data source, so that source sees your IP address and what you typed. This site has no server storing your lookups. The privacy policy lists every outside service involved.

It does not give advice. A tool reports what a source records or what a formula works out. It will not tell you what to do about it. Those are different things, and the second one needs somebody who knows your situation.

It does not claim expertise. Nothing here is based on professional credentials, field testing, laboratory work or first-hand inspection. This site is a careful interface to information that already exists, and that is all it presents itself as.

It does not replace an official record or a professional. Published data is generalised, sometimes old, and sometimes wrong for a specific case. Where a tool has an official counterpart, the tool links to it. Where a decision needs a real test, measurement or professional opinion, the tool says so rather than pretending a published figure will do.

It does not guess. When a source has no answer for what you entered, the tool says that plainly and explains why, instead of filling the gap with an estimate.