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Rebuild studyIronwood Heating & AirHVAC

Same design, new engine: a pure performance rescue.

The baseline models a site whose owner already paid for a design they like — shipped on a bloated theme that fails every speed test. The rebuild keeps the design pixel-for-pixel and replaces everything underneath.

A rebuild study: a typical underperforming website, rebuilt to our standard under a fictional brand. The engineering is real — every number is measured on the build.

6.8s → 1.0s

Mobile load, baseline vs rebuild (lab)

Archetype

Good design, terrible engine — a performance-only rescue

Disciplines shown

Performance, Technical SEO

Build time

4-week rescue

The starting point

This is the most common rescue case we see: a recent redesign the owner likes, built on a heavy theme — 4MB of JavaScript, a 6.8-second mobile load, failing Core Web Vitals across the board. A second full redesign would be neither affordable nor necessary. The design isn't the problem; the construction is.

The rebuild

We rebuilt the templates in clean code while preserving the approved design exactly: same layout, same colors, same imagery. JavaScript shipped to visitors dropped by 90%, images were properly sized and lazy-loaded, and hosting moved to an edge network.

Four weeks, no visual change, no downtime — and a 6.8-second load became 1.0 seconds.

What it demonstrates

Speed is separable from design. When the look is fine and the engine is broken, we replace the engine — this build shows exactly how much headroom that recovers, with before-and-after numbers measured under identical lab conditions.

Measured on the build

6.8s → 1.0s

Mobile load, baseline vs rebuild (lab)

−90%

JavaScript shipped vs baseline

All green

Core Web Vitals, lab measurement

0

Visible design changes

Measured on the rebuilt concept in lab conditions: mid-range Android device, throttled 4G.

Before / after — measured on the build

[ Baseline ]

6.8s

Mobile load (lab)

  • 4MB of JavaScript from a heavy theme
  • Failing Core Web Vitals across the board
  • Oversized, eagerly-loaded images
  • A design the owner already likes

[ Rebuild ]

1.0s

Mobile load (lab)

  • −90% JavaScript shipped
  • All green Core Web Vitals (lab)
  • Properly sized, lazy-loaded images
  • 0 visible design changes

−90%

JavaScript shipped vs baseline

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