diy-wood-siding-installation / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

Siding is important! There is no stage of home construction that you should rush through, but if there were, it shouldn't be siding. Whatever type of siding product you choose, purchase and installation is not cheap, so you don't want to do it again anytime soon. Your siding needs to protect your home from the weather,...

What is Shou sugi ban siding? © Resawn Timber Co. Shou sugi ban is an ancient Japanese carbonized wood finish created by burning the surface of wood to preserve it. The final product is also known as Yakisugi (yaki means to cook/burn and sugi is the Japanese name for cedar), but shou-sugi-ban seems to have won as the...

Should we consider adding a bidet? Although quite popular in Africa, Asia and Europe, the bidet has been slow to gain popularity in America.  Could it be that we are just creatures of habit? Does the idea of a jet of water blasting your nether regions seem a hard leap to make at first? Well, you’re probably not the on...

There is some debate in performance building circles, particularly in the Passive House community as to whether or not you can add enough insulation below a concrete floor to eliminate the need for heating it. We have been on the fence about this and leaned to both sides at different times, but it seems we have now fa...

Commercial Green Roof Case Study AB Canada Nestled in the Oldman River valley in Lethbridge Alberta, the green roof on the Helen Schuler Nature Centre (HSNC) has been attracting local and international attention from visitors and living roof enthusiasts since its completion in 2013. On the roof of the building, a 200m2...

We have finished the bathroom counter, floors and shower stalls with a dark slate tile from Glendyne. Slate is a natural stone, so its surfaces have more character and inconsistencies in texture - and at times in thickness - than manufactured tiles. This can mean a bit more effort on the part of installers, but a more ...

DIY Green Roof Installation The following DIY green roof video shows the steps needed to ensure your green roof will not leak. Watch more Green Building Guide videos from EcoHome on YouTube here The most common building material used for roofing in North America is asphalt shingles, and because of their poor durabili...

Sanding and Refinishing a hardwood floor, when is the best time to do it? It may seem weird to say, but the best time to refinish a hardwood floor is before it shows severe signs of wear and tear. Hardwood floors and hardwood laminated or engineered floors are durable and can withstand a lot of traffic, but over time, ...

Siding installation The walls of your home are an environmental separator. Their job is to keep the inside in and the outside out. Exterior cladding or siding is your first line of defense against weather elements, and its job is to allow interior control layers (ie. the building envelope) to do their jobs without bei...

This heat recovery ventilation (HRV) system is very different than what people are probably used to seeing, where air is directed to a centralized core for a heat exchange before being exhausted from the house. Lunos is a decentralized system with a series of self-contained units, each with their own ceramic heat exch...

Here is our DIY video of  how to lay down tubing for our radiant floor in the Edelweiss House. We have a 10 zone system, allowing floor temperatures in each room to be controlled independently. HePex tubing was provided by Uponor, who also use building plans to give customers a zone plan to follow making the install q...