stone-siding / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

Should you insulate an old stone house? Those beautiful old stone houses from the 1800s are a piece of our heritage that should be preserved, but in colder climates like Canada and the northern US States, wow - are they energy pigs! To bring an old stone house into the modern age of energy efficiency is not the easiest...

Siding is important! There is no stage of home construction that you should rush through, but if there were, it shouldn't be siding. Whatever type of siding product you choose, purchase and installation is not cheap, so you don't want to do it again anytime soon. Your siding needs to protect your home from the weather,...

Cedar shingles & shakes: a homeowner's & pro's guide Cedar shingles and shakes give a home a very natural feel that enhances any home's curb appeal. Known for their durability and insulation properties, these roofing and siding materials provide a beautiful, sustainable option for both new builds and renovation...

Siding installation The walls of your home are an environmental separator. Their job is to keep the inside in and the outside out. Exterior cladding or siding is your first line of defense against weather elements, and its job is to allow interior control layers (ie. the building envelope) to do their jobs without bei...

  This guide provides a comprehensive look at the key aspects of this topic. Below is an overview of the sections we will cover, allowing you to jump directly to the information you need. Comparison: metal vs. wood and other home cladding types Durability and performance Profiles and aesthetics of metal siding Metal s...

What is Shou sugi ban siding? © Resawn Timber Co. Shou sugi ban is an ancient Japanese carbonized wood finish created by burning the surface of wood to preserve it. The final product is also known as Yakisugi (yaki means to cook/burn and sugi is the Japanese name for cedar), but shou-sugi-ban seems to have won as the...

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...

Comprehensive thermal overcoating: a homeowner's & pro's guide Comprehensive thermal overcoating is the process of wrapping an existing building envelope in a continuous blanket of high-performance insulation to eliminate thermal bridging and move the dew point safely outside the structural wall.  This guide provid...

The pursuit of a sustainable and fire-safe building envelope involves weighing complex trade-offs between different rigid insulation boards. While fossil-fuel-based materials like XPS and EPS face scrutiny for their embodied carbon and chemical blowing agents, they remain dominant for valid performance and cost reasons...

Home floor tiles: a homeowner's and pro's guide When it comes to choosing the right floor tiles for a home, the decision goes far beyond aesthetics. The ideal tile balances durability, maintenance, cost, and most importantly, environmental impact. As a builder when I chose tile surfaces for my own home, I used handmade...

The most common kitchen counters you will find in homes are traditional laminate countertops. And they certainly live up to the adage ‘you get what you pay for’, as most of them still contain a lot of formaldehyde and they aren’t very durable. Maybe the latest generation of laminate countertops for green kitchens and b...