durable-floors / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

The floors you choose really create the atmosphere in your home and give it its identity. The first considerations should be to choose a durable and non-toxic floor to ensure safe indoor air quality. When you are making choices, find out the estimated lifespan and what maintenance is required to keep it in good conditi...

Remember linoleum? Meet marmoleum! Remember linoleum, that durable but boring material found on most kitchen and bathroom floors of older homes? These days, its called marmoleum and it comes in bright colors and faux finishes. Whatever name you call it, it’s generally considered both the greenest and healthiest floor c...

How much insulation does a basement floor need? 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...

Polished concrete floors are extremely durable and non-toxic; silicate-based densifiers keep them that way and make it a great start to safe indoor-air quality in a home. This is an excellent flooring option for anyone with chemical sensitivities who wants a beautiful and durable eco-friendly floor in their passive sol...

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, ...

How do the best heat pumps work? A heat pump works very differently than other home heating systems, in that it doesn’t ‘generate’ heat the way a furnace, boiler, radiator, oven or even a toaster or hair dryer would; instead, it collects heat from one place and transfers it to another. Think of your refrigerator as an ...

  This guide provides a comprehensive look at the key aspects of this topic. Below is an overview of the sections we will cover, allowing you to jump directly to the information you need. Comparison: metal vs. wood and other home cladding types Durability and performance Profiles and aesthetics of metal siding Metal s...

What is the two thirds rule? How insulation and wall assemblies work best In the world of durable, high-performance green building, few concepts are as little understood as the two-thirds rule. It's pretty much common knowledge that in cold climates the vapor barrier goes on the inside of insulation, and in hot humid c...

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...

Slab-on-grade construction - technical guide   Deciding to build your home with a slab-on-grade foundation instead of a conventional basement or raised crawlspace foundation can greatly reduce your environmental impact during construction, and has the potential to offer significant financial savings as well. By replaci...

How to build homes ready to face climate change? We often think of the land underneath our feet as fixed and unmoving. On a calm day, if you sit next to the ocean, it seems quite stationary. It does change though - with the shifting of tectonic plates, erosion, wind, super tides and flooding.  These changes are most no...