poultry-care / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

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...

World carbon emissions by country global overview
Lifestyle and environment

COP26 and world carbon emissions by country per capita - which countries top the charts?

With the recent COP26 Global Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, all the world's countries are talking carbon emissions amidst a certain amount of finger-pointing. In the closing minutes as the sustainable world watched the much applauded COP26 conference and a host of private jets were revving up their eng...

The Best Electric Car - Discover which EV is best for You
Lifestyle, location and commuting

The Best Electric Car - Discover which EV is best for You

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...

The village of Baie-Saint-Paul in Charlevoix
Choosing where to live

Moving to the country - living a rural lifestyle

  For those that aren't made for the bustling lifestlyle of cities, small towns can be a dream come true. The nature of small towns is one of community and accessible downtown cores. Essential services like grocery stores, banks and post offices are usually grouped closely together, as are schools, so children can ofte...

What to do with old coffee grounds
Lifestyle and environment

Here is what old coffee grounds are good for - including skin care !

As we mentioned in our previous post, coffee has many magical properties but its magic should never be used on your precious gardens.  We’ve already covered why coffee grounds are bad for your garden, from suppressing the growth of other plants, to making the soil too acidic. And even though most articles you will find...

PSI

Case Study: Kenogami House, Saguenay, Quebec

Performance: Passive Solar Index 15 Registration date: February 12, 2015 Region: Saguenay, Quebec Type of construction: Single-family New home PSI rating: 15 kWh / m² Method of calculation: Modelled Built by owner Alain Hamel, the Kenogami House is located at Lac Kenogami, Saguenay, Quebec, and is a winner of the Green...

How to choose the best home EV charger or EVSE?
Lifestyle, location and commuting

EV home charging stations & How to decide which is the best EVSE for you

Which is the best home EV charger? That depends... Here's a suprising fact for many new EV owners - the charger for a shiny new Electric Vehicle is actually inside it! The charger is not the box on the wall, but is the equipment installed inside the car that takes the AC Alternating Courant electric sourced from your r...

Gabion walls can be used for building homes
Concrete and masonry

Gabion Walls - what is a gabion cage & how to build with them?

Gabion walls are retaining walls built by stacking stone in a gabion cage or gabion basket that can serve many purposes but are most often used to create tiered or leveled ground in gardens.  They are rectangular baskets of metallic lattice filled with stones and their origin dates back to war times when they were erec...

Off-grid LEED Gold house in Low, Quebec
LEED Homes

Canada Ranks as the top country for LEED green building for second year in a row

Washington, D.C. and Ottawa, ON — (July 22, 2015) — Today, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced that Canada ranks first on USGBC's second annual ranking of the Top 10 Countries for LEED, the world's most widely used and recognized green building rating system. The Top 10 list highlights countries outside o...

Off-grid and Net-Zero Housing

A Toronto Off-grid home 20 years later; how did it fare? How could it be optimized?

In 1996, this off-grid house designed by architect Martin Liefhebber was one of two concept homes selected by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) as part of their Healthy Housing Design Competition. What was to be built was a three-bedroom semi-detached home on a small lot in downtown Toronto, And beyon...

ProductiveHouse in Montreal
Choosing where to live

Green living in the city

1. Life without a car. One of the nice things about living in the city is public transportation and proximity to services, which makes it possible to live without a car. Or at the very least, it can reduce the amount of driving you have to do. When choosing a place to live, check the walking distances from buses or sub...