repurposed-building-materials / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

Recycled building materials
Recycled and Reclaimed Materials

Where to buy and sell used building materials

When buildings are decommissioned there can be a lot of valuable materials that could be used again, but when buyers can’t find sellers, otherwise usable materials are being sent to a land fill. There is a growing amount of used building materials that can be found at online classified websites such as Craigslist and K...

Recycled barn beams and a refinished clawfoot bathtub
Recycled and Reclaimed Materials

Recycled & reclaimed materials

The cost of every item we purchase is determined in part by the price of oil. This includes products that are in no way petroleum based, since material extraction, manufacturing and transportation will in one way or another, rely at least in part on oil. As the price of oil continues to rise, the money saved by employi...

Shipping container homes, Good or Bad?
Architecture and plan design

Are shipping container houses environmentally friendly & good or bad to live in?

Shipping container homes are gaining popularity globally, especially as Tiny Houses, as they can be seductively attractive with their modern looking lines, colours and shape - but one question we've been asked consistently is: "Are shipping containers Good or Bad as homes - and for the Environment?"  Like many great id...

Efficient home design

Phase change building materials - natural heat storage in buildings

  This article was inspired by a podcast I heard at Positive Energy, where I have yet to hear a podcast that I didn't want to listen to a second time, so check them out if you're like me and you think listening to building science  makes mundane tasks like folding laundry a joy. This particular episode was about phase ...

Interior solid pine door
Doors and trim

Interior finishing

Adhesives and sealants: Modern homes have a lot more caulking and adhesives than older homes. Adhesives are liberally applied to many surfaces for ease and speed of job completion, as well as to prevent squeaking between flooring and joists, for example. Functionally speaking, caulking is used to prevent moisture and a...

Bathroom with refinished claw foot tub and barn board trim in a home c
Materials and resources

Finding environmentally friendly materials

All materials will have a history, the pros and cons of which will need to be weighed. Unfortunately there isn’t always an obvious right or wrong answer as to whether or not something is a sustainable material. The design of your home, where you live and your lifestyle are all factors that determine what the most ecolo...

"The Boneyard" in Arizona, the world’s biggest aircraft graveyard
Recycled and Reclaimed Materials

Old airplane fuselage is finding a new life as recycled building material.

They might be parked a little more precisely than an auto wrecking yard, but that doesn’t mean they will ever fly again. Decommissioned aircraft have been declared so, because they have reached the end of their safe flying days. While most of us might be fine riding in rusty old cars, few of us would climb into a rusty...

Hemp fibreboard and Hemp insulation - the Green Building choice
Wood and organic materials

Hemp building supplies

Hemp is a very sustainable construction material that is no longer just a fringe product; rather, it is becoming a more accessible mainstream building product, most notably as hemp-batt insulation, and also hemp boards for cabinetry.  Why choose hemp building materials? The growing and harvesting of hemp is a far more ...

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 ...

Plastic in landfill
Recycled and Reclaimed Materials

Turning Waste Plastic Into useable Fuel

Though we all diligently cart our plastic to the curb for recycling, the sad reality is that only about 7% of it is commercially viable for recycling, the rest ends up as landfill. Plastic is a petroleum product that until now has been very inconsistent and unstable when returned to an oil form. Recently a North Americ...

Diving to retrieve sunken timber from the log drive
Recycled and Reclaimed Materials

Reclaiming sunken timber from the log drive

As a kid growing up along the Gatineau River in Quebec, watching tugboats pulling log booms down the river was commonplace, and logs that got loose were a great source of entertainment and exploration. Any that were big enough to hold a bunch of kids for log rolling competitions were highly coveted. There were legitima...