high-performance / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

Multi-unit Passive House for Heiltsuk First Nation on Campbell Island,
Passive House

Multi-unit Passive House for Heiltsuk First Nation in British Columbia

Bella Bella is a small community located on Campbell Island between the northern tip of Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii. Approximately 90% of its 1,500 residents belong to the Heiltsuk First Nation. In 2004, a fire destroyed the staff housing complex at the RW Large Memorial Hospital, and Vancouver Coastal Health [VCH...

Balanced insulation levels in a green home
Efficient home design

Insulation in green home building, a balanced approach to putting it where it does the most good

Home insulation - how much do you need and where to put it: Think of the heat in your home as if it were water behind a dam, and that insulation levels were the concrete wall of the dam. Would you choose the height of that concrete wall randomly, or would want an even level of concrete to hold back as much water as pos...

How to Build With Less Wood for Best Performance
Wood and organic materials

How to build high performance homes with less lumber

The cost of lumber is at an all time high, and because of that fact, other wall assemblies are showing themselves to be more affordable in comparison. So it’s a great time to highlight a few alternatives.  Standard residential home construction in most colder climates now involves 2x6s and fiberglass insulation batts. ...

How to choose Triple pane, high performance windows
Windows and doors

Our top tips for buying high-performance windows

Which windows are best? Windows are essential to our homes, so getting the choice of window right is important. They give us natural light, a way to ventilate the home without depending on mechanical systems, a means of emergency exit, and they offer an alternative way to heat homes free of charge through passive solar...

Passive House certification - PHI or PHIUS? The Spring House Passive House
Passive House

Everything you need to know about Passive House certification

What is Passive House certification? The term “Passive House” was once obscure jargon used solely by construction engineers & technically-minded home designers, but now "certified Passive House" is being increasingly specified by construction professionals and homeowners across North America. The concept of Passive...

The high performance almost ZNE Warburg house by bioi - built for under $100,00
Efficient home design

A High Performance Home on a Shoe String Budget (Almost ZNE!)

On a wooded Canadian farmstead in rural Alberta, the new house replaced an old home that was no longer able to fulfill its function. The architectural concept for the new home was simple: open, flexible, efficient (almost Zero Net Energy), and for an economical budget - not everyone can manage to build affordable net z...

Thermal image showing where home heat loss is occurring.
Insulation and soundproofing

How insulation works

Insulation slows the rate of heat transfer, helping keep homes warmer in winter and cooler in summer. How well-insulated your home is will determine how comfortable it is and how much you will spend on energy for heating and cooling, and in some respects, how durable it will be. The transfer of heat (or heat loss) occu...

Rendering of the Ecohome demonstration house
Efficient home design

Ecohome Demo House: High performance, affordable cost

The guiding principles during the design of Ecohome’s Edelweiss House demonstration home - passive heating and cooling, healthy living space, affordable to build and operate, resilient and flexible design.  The underlying goal of the Edelweiss House was to design and build a modestly-sized but functional home that wou...

Choosing a building envelope
Wall assemblies - new construction

Choosing a building envelope - starting with the perfect wall

What is the best wall system for a home?  We're frequently asked which is the perfect wall system for high-performance LEED, Passive House or Zero Energy Homes, Well, a perfect Answer to that Is, first Ask the Right Questions! - After all, what is the best way to get from one place to another?  You have to choose betwe...

Wood frame Triple-glazed, argon-filled windows in the Ecohome Demo House
Windows and doors

Choosing windows - which window frame? wood v aluminum v vinyl

...high-performance in windows a second and even third low-E coating can be applied. This combined with interior films and well-insulated frames means the overall performance of residential windows can possibly reach an overall performance of R20 or more, which was unheard of until not long ago. U-Value: The U-value attri...

Suspended-film insulating glass windows are high-performance windows
Windows and doors

Suspended-film insulating glass windows - A definitive guide for these high-performance windows

...high-performance windows can get a little pricey too. But don’t get us wrong here, better-quality high-performance windows are very much worth the money. Windows are the weakest performing point in a building envelope (one would hope at least), so that’s why we used triple-glazed argon-filled passive house performance ...