causes-ice-dams / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

Ice dams form at the bottom of roofs, letting water penetrate and cause damage to the interior of walls and roofs.  When snow melts on a roof it runs down until it meets the unheated bottom edge of a roof and then freezes. This chunk of ice is called an ice dam, and it can cause water to backup beneath shingles and Ice...

Top Tips for preparing a home for winter Extremely low temperatures over winter can test your home in many ways, and sometimes your house will return a failing grade. Even brand new homes built to code can see failures of their building envelopes, windows, doors and ventilation systems during winter, a simple failure t...

Frost in Attics: why is there Ice in my roof?  When a warm sunny day arrives after a long cold stretch and it seems like you have a roof leak when there isn't a cloud in the sky, it's probably Attic Icing, otherwise known as Ice Dams or Ice Damming, and the surprising thing is that it's very unlikely that the roof cove...

The Definitive History of ICFs - Contents What is the history of ICFs ? What is the History of Plastic foam ICF's  ICF blocks aren't made of styrofoam Who invented foam ICF construction blocks? Which was the first ICF block construction? What happened next in the history of ICFs? The History of ICFs Timeline ...

As a precursor to a new post exploring everything you wanted to know about Dry Rot but were afraid to ask, we wanted to cover the causes, effects and solutions for interstitial condensation in walls and roofs. We’ve all heard of condensation, but has anyone ever heard of interstitial condensation? If you haven’t (or ev...

What is a Passive House? The term 'passive house' refers to an extremely high performing energy efficient home, in the sense that the heating and cooling is largely passive. To achieve this, homes have to be designed to take advantage of the free heat available from the sun, and heavily fortified with insulation to han...

Condensation on Windows – Is it Bad? It’s that time of year when condensation on windows becomes a pain, we wake up in the morning, can’t see out, curtains are wet, there’s water on the window bottoms, and even worse it can affect the walls below windows causing mold and mildew in drywall and furniture. Condensation i...

Wood, steel and concrete each have specific structural advantages, each with their own characteristics. The following is a life-cycle comparison conducted by the Athena Sustainable Materials Institute (ASMI) of the materials only, and does not include any considerations of how they each affect thermal performance, vapo...

Approximately 100 times more water vapor is carried into our walls by air leakage than is carried by vapor diffusion. That makes air barriers 100 times more important than vapour barriers, so why is no one talking about them? We don't talk about air barriers because we are too busy talking about vapor barriers. An air ...

What is the best wall system for a home?  We're frequently asked which is the perfect wall system for high-performance LEED, Passive House or Zero Energy Homes, Well, a perfect Answer to that Is, first Ask the Right Questions! - After all, what is the best way to get from one place to another?  You have to choose betwe...

Are Tiny Houses Worth it? Are Tiny houses a good investment? That depends on your lifestyle and how well you build them. Here are some things to think about before you join the Tiny House Movement and commit to life in an extremely small space.  We have featured a number of tiny houses on our pages over the past few ye...