getting-rid-termites / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

Carpenter ants are a common pest and nuisance to get rid of in homes
Pest control

Removing insects and rodents from your home, safely & humanely (by preference)

Insects & Rodents, how to show them the door... Below is a list of some of the more common rodents and insects that invade homes, and some ideas on how to rid yourself of the offending guests. We would certainly advocate for the most humane and non-toxic solutions first, but we have included other options if the hi...

Heating an off-grid home
Off-grid and Net-Zero Housing

OFF GRID LIVING BLOG, PART 4: Off-grid heating systems - lessons learned from our off grid home

This is the fourth piece in a blog series written by Craig Anderson as he documents the design and construction of an off-grid LEED Gold passively-heated home. See post 1 of the off-grid homes blog here, the overview . or post 2 in the off-grid homes blog here covering design and construction choices. or here see post ...

LEED Homes

Getting Started

Getting Started with LEED The LEED ® Canada for Homes certification program is based on documentation of the building process and visual inspections by LEED certified Green Raters. Upon successful completion of your project, your home can be awarded a level of either Certified, Silver, Gold or the highest possible le...

Lifestyle and environment

Resources and getting started

Choosing between buying, building or renting  1. Building a new home. Building a sustainable and energy efficient house is not necessarily more expensive than building a house simply to meet provincial building codes. Many new home starts have achieved far superior performance while still coming in the same or lower in...

Snowboarder, Mike, Basich's, off-grid cabin in the woods with hot tub
Tiny house

Off-grid tiny house in the heart of the Sierras.

Snowboarding pioneer and photographer Mike Basich built himself an epic Tiny off-grid cabin. Without a bedroom or bathroom per se, but equipped with a hot tub and chairlift, this gorgeous Tiny House is most perfectly situated in the heart of the Sierras.  © Mike Basich Basich began his career as one of the p...

Wood pellet stoves that don't need electric ideal for off grid operation
Wood stove and biomass heat

These wood pellet stoves for off-grid heating don't need electric to operate

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...

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...

Passively-heated off-grid LEED Gold home
Off-grid and Net-Zero Housing

Off-grid living blog part 6 - energy modeling projections and real performance

This is the fifth piece in a blog series written by Craig Anderson as he documents the design and construction of an off-grid LEED Gold passively-heated home. See post 1 of the off-grid homes blog here, the overview . or post 2 in the off-grid homes blog here covering design and construction choices. or here see post 3...

Off grid, passively heated and cooled house in the Gatineau Hills, Que
Off-grid and Net-Zero Housing

Off grid living blog, part 2: passively heated, this house in Quebec aims for LEED certification

With their house about three kilometers from the nearest paved road and hydro pole, so truly off-grid, Craig Anderson and  France-Pascale Ménard had no option but to go for extreme efficiency in design, product selection and construction. Craig and France-Pascale went for LEED certification through the CaGBC, and this ...

Passive home designer Harold Orr, one of the original high performance homes
Passive solar home design

The principal designer of the house that inspired the global Passivhaus movement reflects on the project that started it all.

While developing pages on passive heating and cooling and writing about Passive House, we were in contact with Harold Orr, a world-renowned environmental engineer, pioneer of the very concept of 'green building'. and who was recently awarded the Order of Canada for his pioneering contribution to energy-efficient home c...

The birthplace of Passive House solar home design The Saskatchewan Conservation
Passive solar home design

Saskatchewan: The birthplace of Passive House and passive solar home design

Passive House design, how does it work? If you've ever sat in a car with black leather seats in the summer, particularly when wearing shorts, you already understand passive solar heat gain. It is a very simple concept that as a building technique dates back thousands of years. You simply need to find out where south is...