balanced-insulation / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

Balanced insulation levels in a green home
Efficient home design

Insulation in green home building, a balanced approach to putting it where it does the most good

Home insulation - how much do you need and where to put it: Think of the heat in your home as if it were water behind a dam, and that insulation levels were the concrete wall of the dam. Would you choose the height of that concrete wall randomly, or would want an even level of concrete to hold back as much water as pos...

Insulating crawlspaces as part of home renovation
Crawl spaces

How to insulate crawlspaces properly as part of renovating an older home

Crawlspace insulation - be careful to get it right A crawlspace comes with all the downsides of a basement, but it is just too low a space to be functional either beyond the folded plastic christmas tree and a couple of boxes of baubles. Unless there is a good reason for it, going through the process of pouring a footi...

Hemp insulation products for USA & Canada rolling off the production line
Insulation and soundproofing

Hemp insulation in Canada & USA - insulating naturally is an Eco-friendly alternative

Hemp insulation manufactured in Canada! Nature Fibres is a young company based in the town of Asbestos, Quebec, which began manufacturing hemp insulation in the winter of 2018. As the town’s name suggests, it was heavily reliant on the manufacturing of asbestos, but those mining and manufacturing facilities are closing...

Basement wall insulation
Insulation and soundproofing

Properly insulating basements and concrete slab floors

  Insulating a basement is a great idea if it wasn't insulated when built, as before we began insulating foundation walls and below slabs (see slab on grade), it was generally estimated that basement heat loss accounted for about 1/3 of the total heat loss of a house. It is likely that such an abysmal starting place ma...

Installing foam panel insulation, which is best?
Insulation and soundproofing

Rigid insulation panels: which ones to use for different applications

Polyisocyanurate (PIR), Extruded Polystyrene (XPS), Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) or Styrofoam? When building or renovating a high-performance building envelope there are really three main kinds of rigid foam panels you are going to have to choose from - Polyisocyanurate known as Polyiso (PIR), Extruded Polystyrene (XPS) ...

Thermal image showing where home heat loss is occurring.
Insulation and soundproofing

How insulation works

Insulation slows the rate of heat transfer, helping keep homes warmer in winter and cooler in summer. How well-insulated your home is will determine how comfortable it is and how much you will spend on energy for heating and cooling, and in some respects, how durable it will be. The transfer of heat (or heat loss) occu...

An attic with 'insulating paint' which doesn't insulate
Insulation and soundproofing

Does 'insulating paint' work?

No matter that engineers and architects long ago debunked it, insulating paint still occasionally finds its way into buildings. Powdered ceramic chips that can be added to any paint are said to reflect heat in or out of a building and reduce heat loss by staggering amounts. I was under the impression that this had been...

Concrete floors and timber frame as thermal mass
Efficient home design

The pros and cons of thermal mass in buildings

Materials in a home that act as thermal mass are things like concrete, masonry, ceramic tiles, even a large volume of wood like timber frames. All materials inside the insulated building envelope will store and release heat, the more dense they are the more pronounced the effects are.  Intentionally adding greater amou...

Roxul mineral wool batt insulation in LEED Homes
Insulation and soundproofing

Choosing the right insulation: the pros, cons and applications for walls, slabs & basements

Not all insulation materials are the same, and they are not always interchangeable A basic understanding of how walls work is needed to help you understand what you can reasonably expect insulation and building materials to do for you when they are part of a wall assembly. If you have a working knowledge of building sc...

Problem areas of air leakage in a home and blower door test being cond
Air and vapour barriers

Airtight Construction of Homes is Essential: "Your house sucks." "Oh yeah? your house blows!"

Air Tightness in Houses - All about Balancing Air Pressure in the Home We go on incessantly here about the importance of air barriers in home construction to reduce air leakage, but no matter how hard you worked to make a house airtight, if the pressure isn't balanced you will be sucking air in or forcing it out and, d...

Insulating a Slab on grade for a Passive Solar LEED Home with Rockwool © Ecohome
Insulation and soundproofing

Insulating below slab-on-grade floors

Insulating below slab-on-grade foundations Why insulate under a slab on grade foundation? For comfort, and to save money, that's why! In many areas Building Code has fallen behind common sense on what specification of insulation to use under a slab, It is common to install as little as R5 insulation below slab floors, ...