fire-proof-home / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

Timber frame construction
Wood and organic materials

Wood frame construction

  The environmental advantages of wood frame construction: As just about the only renewable building material, wood has many advantages over other materials. It requires less energy to produce in terms of resource extraction, manufacturing and transportation. While still prevalent in residential construction, wood has ...

Why Building Affordable Eco Homes is Important
Efficient home design

Why building an affordable family home today means choosing to build a Green Home

As the effects of climate change become more pronounced every year, it is becoming virtually impossible for the most ardent climate change deniers to dismiss it, despite their valiant efforts. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): "Rising global average temperature is associated with widespread change...

Ecohome's Kenogami House 'The Most Resilient Home in North America'
Concept and design

Resilient design features for new home construction

Future-proofing homes: Our society has a collective trust in its commercial building industry to provide us with homes that we assume meet some realistic standard of resilience. They do to an extent, but a very minor extent. Assuming the climate putters along with relative normalcy, your home will keep you warm, dry an...

Fire retardants in furniture are intended to slow flames
Interior design and furnishing

Flame retardants in furnishings - an unnecessary and serious health risk

With the intention of reducing the speed at which flames can spread, fire-retardant compounds are added to almost all the materials we furnish our homes with: children's toys, curtains, carpets, mattresses, sofas, electronics, plastic, etc. How flame retardants work: The chemicals generally used as flame retardants are...

Resilient Homes, why they're important in dealing with Climate Change
Lifestyle and environment

Resilient Homes; Why we need to build to withstand climate change events

Future-proofing homes for Climate Change:  Anticipating future climatic challenges and constructing resilient buildings to withstand them should be an important consideration when building any new home - but we're often told that "a Green Home costs more", and too many people then decide in the face of resistance from ...

High efficiency wood stoves
Wood stove and biomass heat

Heating with wood and biomass fuel

There has been an increase in the use of wood and other biomass fuel for heating homes across the colder parts of North America & Canada for the last decade. In Eastern Canada and the USA in particular this trend was largely triggered by one storm in 1998. There was a noticeable spike in woodstove sales in 1999 thr...

Net Zero Energy Homes Pilot Canada
Green building certifications

Net zero energy homes Canadian pilot results

Net Zero Energy Homes pilot program goals The goal of the R-2000 Net Zero Energy homes pilot program in Canada was to improve the performance standards of homes, and to raise awareness of energy-efficient green home building techniques among builders. Through participating in this pilot project, every builder became li...

Understanding sound transmission in homes
Insulation and soundproofing

Understanding sound transmission in buildings

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), ...

How to Build Homes & Protect Homes to Stop Wildfires
Concept and design

How to protect your home from fire - a burning need to know.

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...

Metal roof with solar panels
Roof coverings

How to choose roofing materials

1. Asphalt shingles: Asphalt shingles © Ecohome We’ll start with shingles to get it out of the way, because choosing an eco-friendly, durable roof covering starts first with dismissing any idea of installing asphalt shingles. High-embodied energy, rarely if ever recycled, they deteriorate rapidly with UV rays, emit s...

Ecohome's passively heated Edelweiss House
Efficient home design

Are better insulated homes worth the money?

There are probably only two general desires we share when imagining a dream house - we all want the nicest one possible for the least amount of money. And we want both of those things right away, rather than waiting a lifetime to see the 'payback' for noble design choices we might have made to save polar bears, bees, p...