roofs / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

...Roofs are A Collaborative endeavour: Green roofs are technically complex building systems, requiring collaboration between architects, structural engineers, mechanical engineers, civil engineers, landscape architects and specialty consultants. A successful green roof is a combination of engineering, architecture and ec...

...roofs- intensive and extensive: Green roof © Ecohome An intensive green roof, also known as a ‘rooftop garden’ refers to planting areas that have a depth of 6 inches and up. Deeper soil supports a greater variety of plants such as vegetables, shrubs and even small trees. Extensive roofs are designed primarily for hig...

...roofs over unventilated roofs for durability and resilience.  An un-ventilated roof should be done either with perfectly sealed rigid foam insulation panels or spray foam. Pick one and stick with it; it's best not to mix insulation types. If you were to have a top layer of foam insulation but have something fibrous und...

...roofs for example, can retain much of the water that falls on them. A green roof (specifically flat ones) can add green space to an otherwise bland concrete landscape, whether that is a commercial building where occupants now have green space on site, or a home where you suddenly have space to grow food. When the volum...

...roofs, send another load of shingles to a landfill and buy new ones. That is why shingles are the single greatest ecological catastrophe of the home building industry, and probably the most expensive long-term roof covering when you consider the full life-cycle of a house. The Tesla Solar Roof powers your home but loo...

Walls in residential homes are almost exclusively finished using gypsum board (either recycled or synthetic) because it is cheap and easy. It is however, not the only option for interior walls, and it has some other competition - especially in areas that may get humidity. We will start with drywall, but also list off a...

As a precursor to a new post exploring everything you wanted to know about Dry Rot but were afraid to ask, we wanted to cover the causes, effects and solutions for interstitial condensation in walls and roofs. We’ve all heard of condensation, but has anyone ever heard of interstitial condensation? If you haven’t (or ev...

How to insulate house walls from the outside Adding extra insulation to the exterior walls of an older home when renovating or remodeling is a great way of improving a home's walls thermal performance and reducing energy use while reducing heating bills, carbon footprint and improving a building's comfort level. It may...

...roofs but it also happens frequently in framed walls but doesn't get spotted until it's too late because of the ubiquitous poly vapor barrier between the drywall and the studs. The moisture laden air can penetrate into hidden interstitial wall cavity from the exterior in warm outdoor temperatures and inside the buildin...

Mineral wool roof insulation used to best effect: Watch more green building video on the Ecohome YouTube channel here The Ecohome's Edelweiss House LEED Platinum certified V4 roof is a 2/12 pitch insulated to R95 with Rockwool (formerly Roxul) mineral wool batts. R95 far exceeds the most rigorous Canadian building cod...

...roofs need to be ventilated and how to ventilate a roof properly. Watch the video covering Green Roof insulation with mineral wool here