Passive heating and cooling / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

...and finishing costs - we'll conservatively call that $400 to install, insulate, and replace trim inside and out. Now look at your heating bill and figure if it is even possible to recoup the replacement cost of a window through added energy savings from that individual window. How long will it take to save $1,600 worth...

...and release less emissions; it's easier to regulate heat; this can reduce fuel use as well by avoiding overheating; your home stays cleaner by not bringing in dirt and hibernating bugs. Wood burning stoves and fireplaces do still add ambiance to any home, making it frankly more "homely", so If you do want a wood burni...

...and wind, propane is typically used for cooking, and in colder climates water heating.   Rainwater is collected, stored in large plastic cisterns and filtered for residential use; waste water is treated on site and used for growing food. The south-facing wall is all windows and acts as a heat collector and greenhouse w...

...and it’s not. The payback starts when your neighbor turns on the heat and you don’t.” For more information on this outstanding LEED Platinum V4 home and its construction, see the Ecohome Building Guide, or these pages: Passive solar home design See LEED and Passive House ready prefab homes here Compare the ca...

...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 conventional roof assemblies and is actively involved with several research and new construction projects. Image a...

...passive solar home design, learn more about high performance sustainable home construction in our Green Building Guide and these pages: Thermal batteries for storing heat  All about Passive House design and certification in Canada and the US Carbon footprints: how to design low carbon and zero carbon homes Wind...

...and the director of Ecohome and Ecohabitation Emmanuel Cosgrove, they designed and built the Kenogami House, which is a model of both sustainability and resilience.  Among his many initiatives, Alex Wilson is an author and the founder of the Resilient Design Institute, Environmental Building News, Greenspec, and Buildi...

...and resilient green building techniques in the Ecohome Green Building Guide pages, and here :  Raft slab kits - a more simple way to build a slab on grade  Air heated radiant floor heating instead of liquid Properly insulating basements and slab on grade floors How to build homes better prepared to withstand cl...

...passive heating and cooling, healthy living space, affordable to build and operate, resilient and flexible design.  The underlying goal of the Edelweiss House was to design and build a modestly-sized but functional home that would greatly outperform conventionally built homes, yet be on par with those homes in its ann...

...Anderson as he documents the design and construction of an off-grid LEED Gold passively-heated home. See post 1 of the off-grid homes blog here . or post 3 in the off-grid homes blog here.  This off-grid home design began with the basic principles of passive heating and cooling - invest in really good windows, face as ...

...Passive Solar Index program (PSI) of energy modelling designs from the benchmark of complete passive solar heating, this is not a rigid target. Depending on climate and other considerations (such as with the Kenogami House), achieving zero heat demand is not always the best use of resources. Regardless of your building...