eps / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

...EPS -  Expanded Polystyrene Foam Insulation Boards: Rated at R4 per inch; EPS foam insulation boards are more permeable to air and moisture than XPS, but it doesn't retain moisture to the same extent because of it's more closed cell structure and it's breathability which lets it dry out. Two inches of EPS foam board ha...

...EPS foam insulation or ‘Styrofoam insulation’ as it is often mistakenly called, which it isn’t. It may seem like splitting hairs, but Styrofoam is a brand name of XPS insulation, it is not EPS insulation, and environmentally speaking they're very different - read more here. A good part of the reason why EPS foam insul...

These Wood Pellet Stoves need no electric! Burning wood to heat a home does not make you an eco-terrorist, let's get that one point out of the way first. Trees are a renewable resource and they are, in effect, solar energy batteries whose energy is accessed when we burn them.  After the 1998 Eastern Canada ice storm, w...

Any of us who've owned gas powered vehicles over the years know how convenient it is to be able to jump in, turn it on, make a quick assessment of the gas level and how far we're going and get on the road knowing that we have enough fuel for the journey, or that we can get what we need with a quick stop en-route. The t...

Buying an electric car (or EV) is on the increase For a lot of people though there's a nagging question in the back of everyone’s mind - When is the right time to make the switch to an Electric Vehicle - & which is the best EV? Over decades, and even more so over the last few years, the purchase prices of EV's cont...

New blowing agents for spray foam coming by the end of 2017 Foam insulation is a petroleum-based product and nothing will change that. But that was never the biggest problem the 'eco' building community had with foam insulation; the main issue was the inclusion of chemicals with a global warming potential (GWP) that wa...

How to protect indoor air quality from smoke during wildfires in homes with HVAC? As we move towards summer in Canada and the USA, we're hoping that last years wildfires are not going to be as bad again this year - but unfortunately in areas like Calgary and the North East of the USA, there have already been air qualit...