planning-renovation / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

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...

The following is an interview with Patrick Ranger, General Manager at Belvedair, a construction company specializing in the design and construction of green homes. Patrick is trained in business administration and information management, and is an experienced green building project manager. JP – Patrick, please tell us...

How to stain or paint an old cedar deck to make it look new and last longer. Staining or painting an old weathered cedar deck can be quite different than staining a new one. First, pressure wash the deck to remove the old gray color and all the build up of grit and stains. Try to always blast the water with the directi...

Proper planning is the key to successfully building a sustainable green home. An energy-efficient ‘eco home’ doesn’t necessarily need to cost a lot more than a code-built home because a lot of that depends on design, but choosing and finding green building materials can take a bit longer as they often need to be specia...

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...

I’m writing this during a heat wave in June, 2021, as much of the US and Canada seem poised to experience yet another record-breaking hot summer. Those who are not climate geeks might ask if this warmer-than-average weather is caused by climate change. In fact, weather is not climate. Weather is what happens day-to-day...

The first step to building a durable and energy-efficient home in North America, including Passive house to PHIUS standards, LEED or Net Zero Homes is knowing your climate zone. Just as we need to wear different outfits in different climates, homes need to be properly designed to meet the temperatures, humidity levels ...

The low carbon footprint of the S1600 kit house The Ecohabitation Eco-Habitat S1600 prefab kit home was designed by PARA-SOL Architecture & Development and built by Batiment Pre-Fab Inc. The experts of Ecohabitation recently calculated the total carbon footprint of this surprisingly affordable prefab eco home, whic...

Following on from our predictions for green construction in 2020, Dodge Data & Analytics just released the findings of a landmark study on prefab and modular construction. The Prefabrication and Modular Construction 2020 SmartMarket Report (download below) was published with the support of Bradley Corp., the Modula...

Top Sustainable Construction Trends for 2020 There are always new green building products coming out that lead to more efficient, more durable or more eco-friendly homes. But most of what grabbed our attention this past year, and the things that we will see through 2020, are perhaps best described as sustainable constr...

EC3 - Reducing the carbon footprint of buildings EC3 Tool – The background - The interest in the environmental impact of buildings is not new by any means: scientists and building experts have been studying the life cycle analysis of buildings for several decades, particularly for certain materials such as the impact o...