Building envelope / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

...Envelope-First Approach Professionals know that a successful renovation starts with the building envelope. This means air sealing the home's 'shell' before tackling finishes and insulation. This involves sealing all the gaps and cracks in the floor, walls, and ceiling that connect the conditioned space to unconditioned...

...building codes, especially on multi-story or uneven surfaces. The best installations utilize both methods for maximum integrity and durability. Now that you know more about EIFS over brick, find more info about exterior wall insulation and green building techniques in the Ecohome Green Building Guide and these pages be...

...building and green building techniques in the Ecohome Green Building Guide and these pages below: Building science principles: how we got here and what we've learned How to choose the best exterior cladding The ultimate guide to air sealing a home How to install exterior siding so walls can dry Sign up now and reap the...

...building standard focused on creating homes with extremely low energy consumption. Windows are a critical component of a Passive House building envelope. They must be incredibly airtight and well-insulated to prevent heat loss in winter and heat gain in summer. This is where tilt and turn windows truly shine. The reaso...

...building envelope & green building techniques in the Ecohome Green Building Guide and these pages below: What is a blower door test? Why roofs need to be ventilated, and how to ventilate roofs properly See Ecohome's heat pump buyers guide here How to air seal a home and balance air pressure for greater effi...

...building envelope against smoke If you know smoke is heading your way, your home's first line of defense is stopping polluted air from getting in. Air infiltration through unsealed gaps can quickly compromise your interior air quality, as well as lose you money on heating or cooling the home and causing interstitial co...

...building a home. It's about replacing poor choices with better ones for - construction materials and building techniques that fit with what's most important to you, building methods make sense in your climate zone, regional building codes, and the size of your wallet. The process should begin by fixing a realistic budg...

...building Science  The wall we designed for the Edelweiss house, Canada's first LEED Platinum V4 Home is best categorized as a 'REMOTE' wall, a high performance building envelope developed by the Cold Climate Housing Research Centre in Alaska. REMOTE stands for 'Residential Exterior Membrane Outside-insulation TEchniq...

...building materials! Lorne Ricketts is a Building Science Engineer [EIT] with RDH Building Engineering Ltd. and has significant experience with the thermal performance of building enclosures and insulation products. He was the lead investigator on a recent project by RDH which assessed the thermal performance of con...

...building envelopes. Read more in the Ecohome Building guide and the pages below, and watch more green building videos here on the Ecohome YouTube channel Taping sheathing as an air barrier saves time and materials The difference between air barriers and vapor barriers  Choosing the right house wrap / weather barr...

...building enclosures that are less forgiving than the air barrier. Where to install an air barrier: A building envelope should only ever have one vapour barrier, and it goes on the warm side of the insulation. Air barriers on the other hand, can be anywhere in the wall assembly and as plentiful as you like. It is highly...