About
StorieDev is one person: Steven Storie, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
I’m a software engineer. StorieDev is the name I put on the things I build outside of that — a place to ship small products under one roof instead of scattering them across a dozen unrelated names.
The products don’t have a common subject. A shared dashboard for a household, a virtual closet, a set of calculators for the trades — the thread isn’t the domain, it’s the shape. Each one started because something was annoying and the existing options either didn’t fit or wanted a monthly fee for a problem that doesn’t recur monthly. Each one is deliberately narrow. I’d rather ship five things that do one job than one thing that does five badly.
Being a one-person studio sets the constraints honestly: releases come when they’re ready, support is me, and roadmaps are short. In exchange, nothing here has to grow to satisfy anyone. A product that works and is finished is allowed to just stay finished.
How the products are priced
There’s no single rule, because the products don’t cost the same to run.
- The trade calculators run entirely on your phone and cost me nothing after you’ve downloaded them. So they’re a one-time unlock at the price shown in the store, with a free tier that does real work. No subscription.
- RoseStorie runs servers, a database, and a message broker every hour of every day. Pretending that’s a one-time purchase would be a lie that ends with the service shutting off, so it has a free tier and paid plans.
What’s consistent is that the price is visible before you commit, and there is no tier whose actual product is nagging you into the next tier.
How the trade calculators cite codes
This one applies to DeckSpec, RafterIQ, and ConduitCheck specifically, and it’s worth explaining plainly because it shapes what those apps can and can’t do.
The model codes they work from — the International Residential Code, published by the International Code Council, and the National Electrical Code®, published by the National Fire Protection Association — arecopyrighted works. Even where a jurisdiction has adopted an edition into law, the publishers assert copyright over the text itself, and licensing it for redistribution is expensive and restrictive. Plenty of well-meaning apps have simply pasted it in anyway. I’m not doing that.
So the rule I build to is: paraphrase, never reproduce.
What the apps do
- Name the section. Section designations like “IRC R507.9” or “NEC 314.16(B)” are factual references, not creative expression. Every result tells you which one it came from.
- Describe what the section requires, in my own words.“This section governs how the deck attaches to the house, including ledger fastener spacing” is my sentence, not theirs.
- Apply the underlying requirements. The numeric requirements themselves — a span limit, a fill percentage, a required spacing — are facts about what the code requires, and facts aren’t copyrightable. The apps compute against them.
- Tell you which edition was used, and let you switch, because adoption varies by state and town.
What the apps deliberately don’t do
- Reproduce code text, verbatim or lightly reworded, anywhere in the app or on this site.
- Reproduce a code table wholesale as a lookup you can browse. The apps compute a specific answer for your specific inputs.
- Claim any affiliation with, endorsement by, or approval from the ICC or the NFPA. There is none.
- Substitute for the actual code book, a licensed design professional, or your building official — all three of which outrank an app on your phone.
The practical upshot: when a result matters, the app hands you the section number so you can open the real book and confirm it. That’s the intended workflow, not a disclaimer bolted on afterward.
Get in touch
Corrections are genuinely welcome — especially on the trade calculators, and especially from people who do that work for a living. If one gives you a wrong answer, or cites a section that has moved between editions, I want to know.
Email hello@storiedev.com or find me on GitHub.