building-energy-efficient / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

So what is a smart home? When paired with intelligent and connected home devices, the phones that most of us carry in our pockets can make our homes safer, more comfortable and durable, and reduce our home energy consumption by as much as 30% if carefully configured and specified. Heating systems and lights can be turn...

What is the free home energy audit? Breaking News: New Canada Greener Homes Grant Scheme 2021 announced - see here for how to apply and eligibility requirements  An energy audit is a home inspection that calculates the total energy consumption of your house, including all electricity and fossil fuels for lighting, appl...

It is easy to look at the R value rating of a material and assume that our entire wall assembly matches it uniformly. But when you factor in the thermal bridges caused by framing materials and any discontinuities in the wall structure, you can also quickly deduce that this is not the case. It doesn't take expensive equ...

Have you ever noticed that at times you can feel cold in your home even though the air temperature is exactly where you like to keep it? That's because, contrary to what most of us think, air temperature is not the main factor that determines human comfort in a building. To illustrate a point, let's start outdoors. I m...

What is the difference between LED and Incandescent lightbulbs? At the beginning of the 20th century, light bulbs were handmade, with incandescent filaments painstakingly being placed in tiny glass globes. Manufacturing is a little more automated now, but the performance of incandescent bulbs hasn't changed - 80-90% of...

Understanding how firewood burns, the technical details Stage 1: The Evaporation of Moisture – otherwise known as “getting the d@mn thing going” If you’ve ever tried to burn wet or unseasoned wood in your fireplace you’ll know how very frustrating this stage can be. Gathering crumpled paper, kindling, an armful of smal...

Sustainable construction is on the move! It seems almost every day a new and innovative product shows up on the market that is more efficient, more effective, greener and healthier. We regularly cruise the web looking for such gems and our latest find is a new system for greywater heat recovery that looks quite promisi...

Are low flow shower heads worth it? So, let's start with this somewhat shocking reality -  North Americans will on average use over 1.4 million litres of water per year, or about 4 to 5 times that of most European citizens. This is according to the SDWF (Safe Drinking Water Foundation). That makes Canada and the US the...

Even when sitting idle, almost all TVs, computers and stereos etc., will still be using power. So any added cost for high efficiency appliances and electronics gets recouped however frequently or infrequently that they are used.   Whatever small appliance and electronic item you are looking at, there is likely at least...

The first thought of home lighting design should be the orientation of windows for quality of life, but also passive solar heat gain. Not only does the sun offer free heat, but free light as well. Natural and certain types of artificial lighting can reduce the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.). Studies s...

What is a blower door test? Blower door tests are becoming part of many State and Provincial mandatory building codes - the new BC Energy Step Code in British Columbia, Canada is one example.  A blower door test is often an essential part of a home audit, we don’t know for sure just yet if it will be part of the free h...