staining-decks / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

Deck building tips for a durable deck construction: Meeting setbacks and getting building permits in Canada & US Raised Deck frame specification - make sure the structure is strong enough Which raised deck foundations are best: cement pillars (Sonotubes), screw piles, floating deck blocks What's the best type of d...

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...

Livos is a Quebec manufacturer of natural wood finishing oils, and they are very transparent about the composition of their products which are mainly plants and some other natural materials. There are also no heavy metals used in the colouring pigments, so it is a completely sustainably-made and healthy product.  "In o...

Restoring a weathered cedar deck easily, step by step  Cedar decking boards turn gray in a few short years if untreated, and can make your deck look much older and closer to the end of its life than it actually is. There are easy tips for restoring an old deck and bringing back the original color of cedar decking. Deck...

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...

  How to cool a home without AC While it's true that no matter where you live, be it urban, suburban or rural, the hottest days and nights of summer may have you dreaming of coolers climates. However, those living in dense urban areas will feel it the most, where ambient temperatures can be 5 to 9 degrees Celcius highe...

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...

Vancouver has set a goal of being the greenest city in the world by the year 2020. Some of the policies included in that plan are expanded public transportation, bike lanes, encouraging laneway houses for urban density and requiring all new civic buildings to be zero emissions. The city has also imposed upon itself a m...

First Rule for Choosing the Hottest Firewood? Before we get into which wood is best for burning, or which wood burns the hottest as a home heat source in a wood-burning stove or fireplace, remember this:  First rule for wood burning? Make sure it's dry or seasoned wood, or most of the heat will be lost on evaporating ...

There has been an increase in the use of wood and other biomass fuel for heating homes across the colder parts of North America & Canada for the last decade. In Eastern Canada and the USA in particular this trend was largely triggered by one storm in 1998. There was a noticeable spike in woodstove sales in 1999 thr...

Frost protected foundations - essential in cold climates Protecting homes and buildings in cold climates from structural damage caused by frost heave is essential for durability. In most parts of Canada and the northern United States, the ground freezes during the winter months to a depth of several feet. Such ground f...