Heating and cooling

One of the questions we're often asked is about noisy baseboard heaters. They click, they bang, they tick, tick, tick constantly, and most of all, electric baseboard heaters or hot water heated baseboard heaters keep people awake. So, how to fix that. Noisy baseboard heaters -yeah, it's a thing... Over the years we’ve…

Comparing the performance of air source heat pumps and ground source geothermal heat pumps at the Living City Campus Archetype Sustainable House to discover which is the best option. Air Source Heat Pumps, and are Ground Source Heat Pumps "Geothermal?" First let's clear up some confusion on terminology regarding heat…

Some techniques that will help you reduce your A/C needs, and certainly help you stay cool in the absence of having one.   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. Howeve…

When building a new home, especially sustainable high-performance eco homes like Passive House or Zero Net Energy in a cold climate, some heat is still necessary. Is the greenest option Electric Heating? Read on to find out. More and more homebuyers are starting to demand energy-efficient new homes and are pushing the…

Wood Combustion – How Firewood Burns, the stages and processes, & how to get the best heat for your $ while being eco-friendly. Understanding how firewood burns, the technical details Stage 1: The Evaporation of Moisture – otherwise known as “getting the d@mn thing going” If you’ve ever tried to burn wet or unseasone…

Ecohome’s new demo house will be a slab on grade with Solar radiant floor heating powered by air tubes heated with air solar panels - Ingenious! Ideal for boosting Passive House heating in cold climate zones. EcoHome is in the process of building our next demonstration low-energy house, and to do so we have partnered…

A comeback for radiant floors heated with air tubes. Radiant heating systems are very common in concrete floors now because they provide a very balanced and comfortable distribution of heat. Those systems are most commonly hydronic, meaning heated liquid is pumped through tubing in the concrete which then radiates tha…

Why are some homes more comfortable than others? Learn about how to design a home for human comfort, which also makes for a more durable and efficient home. Have you ever noticed that at times you can feel cold in your home even though the air temperature is exactly where you like to keep it? That's because, contrary…

Making sense of fireplace and wood stove specifications and knowing how to choose the right one for you if you're looking to burn wood for minimum environmental impact & maximum heat output. Wood Burning Stoves - which are best & which burn cleanest? Reading the specifications of a wood stove can be rather complicated…

Short of a wood stove, pretty much all heating systems require power to operate. So in the event of an apocalypse (zombie, climate, asteroid, etc) these two pellet stoves can keep you warm when the power goes out. These Wood Pellet Stoves need no electric! Burning wood to heat a home does not make you an eco-terrorist…

Heat pumps can heat a house three times more efficiently than other heating types. When paired with a heat pump water heater this significantly reduces the cost of heating & domestic hot water, especially when the home is LEED or Passive House certified. How well does a heat pump work in a LEED or Passive House certif…