effect-home-builders / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

This project, affectionately referred to as Belgravia Green, is a collaboration between home owners, local experts and Effect Home Builders. Together they are pushing the envelope to design and build Net Zero Energy homes that produce as much energy throughout the year as they consume. Net Zero Energy home © Eff...

How to find a certified Green Builder? It’s not common to find a reliable ‘green home listing’ or ‘green pages’ in specific regions, so choosing a quality general contractor with experience building efficient homes can be tricky. Here are some tips of where to look, what to look for, and what to avoid.  First, start wi...

Developer Luc Bélisle will be partnering with Matthew Smith of Mapleridge Homes to build the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified housing project in the Gatineau Hills of Quebec. Phase 1 will have 12 lots available, but the developer has 470 acres total on which he hopes to build about 1...

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...

Let’s start by pointing out that this post is mostly about fire coming from outside of your home, like from a forest fire or grass fire or a house next door. It’s not about a fire starting when you forgot about the grilled cheese on the stove. But before we go outside your home, I want to make sure you have strategical...

1. Make a realistic budget and schedule: This is, without a doubt, the starting point to a successful build - don’t underestimate the time and money it will take to complete a build or renovation. Even professional contractors tend to underestimate the costs and duration of a project. Get advice from multiple professio...

Before embarking on any structural changes, it is most important to understand that the sound isolation between two homes is not determined only by the common wall or floor. All the other parts of the construction - side walls, ceilings, floors under walls - can transmit sound. Flanking sound transmission (see below), ...

For most of us, purchasing or building a home will be the biggest investment of our lives. This section is about knowing what to look for in new homes to get the best value for your dollar, or what to look for in a building lot for the same reasons. What to look for in a location: Being close to where you work and pla...

Along with its unprecedented achievements, the Kenogami House continues to act as a laboratory for resilient, cold climate building practices. Through software energy modeling it was determined that the Kenogami House would likely require 14.6 kWh of heat per square metre per year, but its actual performance seems to b...

The first step to controlling sound transmission in buildings is assessing the situation. What kind of noise is it? Noise in buildings is usually assigned to one of three classes: Airborne sound: Sound such as voices, TV or stereo sounds. The source does not strike or vibrate against the structure of the building. Stru...

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...