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Terms of service

drywallDB (drywalldb.com) · last updated 21 September 2026 · applies to new accounts from that date, and to existing accounts from 5 October 2026

1. The service

drywallDB is a subscription database of UK plasterboard products. It provides search, cross-brand comparison, a rules-based assessment that identifies candidates for an “or equivalent” substitution, and generated substitution documents, built from archived manufacturer literature.

2. Business customers

drywallDB is a professional tool provided for use in the course of a trade, business, craft or profession. These terms form an agreement between drywallDB and your business. By creating an account or subscribing, you confirm that you are acting for business purposes and not as a consumer, and that the person accepting these terms is authorised to do so on the business’s behalf. Consumer-protection regimes that apply to contracts with consumers — including cancellation (“cooling-off”) rights under the Consumer Contracts Regulations — do not apply to this agreement.

3. Accounts and trial

An account is created with your email address; sign-in is by emailed link. New accounts receive a 7-day free trial that includes catalogue search and cross-brand comparison. Generating substitution documents is a Pro feature and is not part of the trial. After the trial, continued access to the catalogue requires a paid subscription.

4. Subscriptions and payment

Pro is £29 per month or £290 per year, billed by card through our payment processor, Stripe. Pro includes full catalogue search, cross-brand comparison and generated substitution documents, subject to the fair-use limits in section 8. You can change your payment method, switch plans or cancel at any time from the billing portal on your account page; cancellation takes effect at the end of the paid period. If a renewal payment fails, access continues for a 14-day grace period while the card is retried, then the account returns to the free (trial-expired) state. We never delete your saved data over a payment issue, and your account page — including data export and account deletion — remains available whether or not you subscribe.

When you cancel, we do not otherwise refund the unused part of a period you have already paid for. If you have paid annually and need to stop part-way through for a genuine reason, you may apply to us at support@drywalldb.com and we will, as a goodwill matter, refund the remaining whole months of your annual term.

We may change subscription prices. Any change takes effect only from your next renewal, and we will tell you by email before it applies. If you do not want to continue at the new price, you can cancel before it takes effect and your subscription will end at the close of your current paid period. drywallDB is not currently VAT registered, so prices do not include VAT. If that changes, we will add VAT as required by law and tell you before it applies.

5. The three classes of data

Values shown in drywallDB belong to one of three classes. Declaredvalues are taken verbatim from a cited manufacturer document (data sheet, declaration of performance, or the manufacturer’s published listings); each names its source. Calculated values, marked with an asterisk (*), are drywallDB arithmetic over declared inputs — for example a per-board weight computed from a declared kg/m² and nominal sheet area — and inherit the declaration basis and nominal character of those inputs. Indicative values, where present, are estimates identified as such. Manufacturers revise their literature; always verify against current manufacturer documents before purchasing or certifying.

6. Candidate assessments and substitution documents

drywallDB’s candidate assessments are produced by versioned, published rules (stated on each comparison) over declared classifications. They are an aid to professional judgement, not a certification. drywallDB identifies candidates by comparing manufacturers’ declared data; it does not assert that any product is equivalent to, or approved as a substitute for, another. In particular, fire-rated systems are tested with specific boards: board-for-board substitution within a rated build-up is not automatically valid, and drywallDB says so wherever fire classifications are involved. Responsibility for specification decisions remains with you and your project’s approvals process.

7. Intellectual property and your licence

drywallDB — including the software, the interface, the published comparison rules, the selection, arrangement and structure of the catalogue, and the compiled database as a whole — is owned by us or our licensors. The database is the result of substantial investment in obtaining, verifying and presenting its contents, and is protected by database right and by copyright, alongside other intellectual property rights. All rights are reserved.

We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable licence to access and use the service, and the data it shows you, for your business’s own internal purposes — researching, comparing, specifying, pricing and procuring products for your own projects and tenders — for as long as your account is in good standing. The licence is personal to your business. All rights not expressly granted are reserved, and nothing in these terms transfers any intellectual property to you.

Documents you generate. Documents the service produces for you to pass on — substitution requests, board data sheets, and any other output we describe as intended for onward submission — are yours to use in the ordinary course of your business. You may send them to main contractors, quantity surveyors, architects, clients, merchants and anyone else involved in your projects, and they may keep and rely on them for that purpose. The restrictions in section 8 apply to the database and its data, not to these documents — provided documents are not generated or collected as a way of reproducing the database or a substantial part of it.

drywallDB records and cites third-party manufacturer literature so that every declared value can be traced to its source. Product names, brand names and trade marks belong to their respective owners and are used only to identify the products they describe; their use does not imply endorsement, sponsorship or funding by, or affiliation with, those manufacturers, who are independent of drywallDB and are not responsible for the service. Where a manufacturer’s underlying document is itself protected, that protection remains with the manufacturer.

8. Acceptable use

The service is for use by you and your business’s own personnel, through the interfaces we provide. Except as section 7 allows for the documents you generate, you must not, and must not allow anyone else to:

Fair-use limits apply and are generous for professional use; if your work genuinely needs more, contact us at support@drywalldb.com or from your account page and we’ll raise them. These restrictions continue to apply to anything obtained from the service after your account closes.

9. Your data

Your saved projects and comparisons are yours. You can export everything drywallDB holds about your account, and delete the account entirely, from your account page at any time. See the privacy policy for detail.

10. Availability

We work to keep drywallDB available and accurate, but the service is provided on an “as available” basis. We do not guarantee that it will be uninterrupted or error-free, and we may carry out maintenance, updates or feature changes from time to time. We will give reasonable notice of planned downtime where we can. This clause is subject to the reasonable skill and care standard in the liability section below.

11. Liability and indemnity

The service is provided with reasonable skill and care, but on a professional-tool basis: we do not accept liability for specification, purchasing or construction decisions made using it, for manufacturer document errors we have faithfully recorded, or for indirect or consequential loss. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law. Our total liability is capped at the amount you paid for the service in the twelve months before the claim.

You agree to reimburse us for any loss, cost or claim we reasonably incur as a result of your breach of these terms — in particular any extraction, scraping, redistribution, resale or credential-sharing prohibited under section 8, or any use of the service or its data outside the licence granted in section 7.

12. Changes and termination

We may update these terms; material changes will be notified to your account email in advance, with the date they take effect. Continuing to use the service after that date means you accept the updated terms; if you do not accept them, you may export your data and close your account before it. You may close your account at any time.

We may suspend or end your access immediately if you materially breach these terms — for example the prohibited uses in section 8 (scraping or systematic extraction, redistribution or resale of the data, building another database from it, or sharing or reselling access), or non-payment continuing after the grace period in section 4. Where we end your access for breach, no refund is due for any unused part of your subscription. Ending or suspending your access never removes your right to export or delete your data first, and does not affect any other claim we may have arising from the breach.

13. If we have to close the service

drywallDB is a small business, and we are explicit about a risk most terms leave unsaid: we may discontinue the service permanently, in whole or in part, including where a third-party claim — or the credible threat of one — makes continuing impracticable for a business of our size to defend, or where the service otherwise ceases to be viable. We will give as much notice as we reasonably can by email to your account address, and at least 30 days, unless a court order or other legal requirement forces us to act sooner.

If we discontinue the service: no further subscription charges will be taken from the date we announce it, and we will refund the part of any period you have already paid for that falls after the date the service ends, calculated by the day against the price you actually paid — for a monthly subscription, the unused days of the current month; for an annual subscription, the unused days of the current year. That refund is the full extent of our liability arising from the discontinuation itself, consistent with section 11.

Your data remains yours throughout. Your account page — including full data export and account deletion — will stay available for at least 30 days after the service closes, and we will remind you to export before the end. Documents you have already generated are yours to keep, and to use as section 7 describes.

14. General

These terms are the entire agreement between us about the service. If any part is found to be unenforceable, the rest continues to apply. If we do not enforce a right straight away, we have not waived it. We may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another organisation — for example if our business is sold — and will tell you if we do; you may not transfer yours without our written consent. Neither of us is liable for failure or delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control. A person who is not a party to these terms has no right under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 to enforce them. We send notices to your account email, and you can reach us at support@drywalldb.com or from your account page.

15. Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.