Materials and resources

Get money for your old building material and Find used building materials on classified lists and through online brokers. When buildings are decommissioned there can be a lot of valuable materials that could be used again, but when buyers can’t find sellers, otherwise usable materials are being sent to a land fill…

A life cycle analysis of the three major materials used as structural support for buildings - wood v concrete v steel - embodied carbon. Wood, steel and concrete each have specific structural advantages, each with their own characteristics. The following is a life-cycle comparison conducted by the Athena Sustainable…

Two new types of mass timber panels similar to cross-laminated timber are hitting the North American construction market. The commercial construction sector has warmly embraced cross-laminated timber (CLT) in recent years, taking advantage of it as the base structure, but also as a design feature. The assembly of…

Both Plywood & OSB have benefits & drawbacks, with much misinformation about Permeability - EcoHOME investigates the latest Data for new Code to help make the best choice. OSB v Plywood - Which is Best? Odds are, that if you pass a housing development of wood-framed houses, it will have OSB (oriented strand board)…

Recycled building materials can add character to a home while you save money and reduce building waste in landfills. The cost of every item we purchase is determined in part by the price of oil. This includes products that are in no way petroleum based, since material extraction, manufacturing and transportation…

The sight of a tree falling can easily trigger something even in the most unlikely environmentalist. Ignoring that visual, wood can be a much greener material choice than many others if you put some thought into selection. Finding sustainable wood: We live in a country with over 400 million hectares of forest, so…

Undeniably the most ecological framing material, wood is both a renewable resource and one that serves to reduce greenhouse gas emissions when used in place of other materials.   The environmental advantages of wood frame construction: As just about the only renewable building material, wood has many advantages over…

Salvage companies are pulling up logs from the bottoms of rivers, where a century and a half of log drives has left behind a lot of great wood. As a kid growing up along the Gatineau River in Quebec, watching tugboats pulling log booms down the river was commonplace, and logs that got loose were a great source of…

The history of Insulating Concrete Forms or ICF for construction in North America from 1932 to 2023 is an interesting one. Often compared to building with Lego, Ecohome will soon be looking into at the future of ICFs for sustainable home construction. The Definitive History of ICFs - Contents What is the…

The construction of mid-rise projects with mass timber products like glulam beams and CLT panels is a quick, durable and cost effective way to significantly reduce embodied carbon in our cities buildings. See more in the mid-rise wood v concrete report. Located in the bustling Griffintown neighborhood of Montreal…

In order to help the mid-rise construction sector, Ecohabitation our Quebec partners have conducted a large-scale comparative study in 2022 demonstrating that the construction of mid-rise wood buildings is a winner on all fronts for all stakeholders. The vision: a brighter future for Canada and North America through…