Building science / Guides

...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 TEch...

...building homes But the principles of building science remain the same in all climate zones ; in relation to moisture movement though walls, and thermal dynamics (meaning how heat moves from one place to another). To better understand the basics of how to build an energy-efficient and durable home , see our building s...

...building significantly more energy efficient homes. Building science training is mandatory for participation in the Canadian Home Builders' Association Net Zero Homes Labelling Program. This training introduces the concept of treating the building as an integrated system, the basic principles of building science and ...

...Building codes and thermal bridges: It is not only sensible to address thermal bridging in construction, it is becoming law. Recent revisions to building codes have increased the thermal requirements of building enclosures in many regions, including requiring a thermal break. Contrary to common assumptions, t...

...building science makes mundane tasks like folding laundry a joy. This particular episode was about phase change building materials (PCMs) and how they can be incorporated into buildings to improve energy-efficiency by harnessing a naturally-occurring physical reality, 'the melting point'. When looking for commerciall...

...buildings. This cult is responsible for many more building failures than building successes. It's time that the cult deprogramming started." - Joe Lstiburek, Principal of Building Science Corporation The USA & Canada has many climatic zones, so there is not one building envelope that can possibly serve them a...

...buildings; Any builder who has successfully navigated a performance-rating system would be knowledgeable in the area of green home building , so is a good bet when searching for a contractor who knows how to correctly weather seal & air seal windows and doors , for example, which is an essential part of building a mo...

...building homes that are better than the legal minimum performance allowed - otherwise known as Building Codes - is probably a smart move. We aren't even suggesting that going to extremes and building North America's best Net Zero Energy Home in a cold climate zone is necessary - even 60% better - which is relatively ea...

...Science NetLinks: Earth Day Lesson Collection : A collection produced for last year’s Earth Day, but still relevant this year. Science NetLinks produced a big list of lessons and learning tools on a variety of earth science subjects, and they’re all easy to browse by grade level, subject, and type of project. ...

...buildings. 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 conventional...

...Building Science Corporation has to say about this type of basement wall assembly - "The experience by the Building Science Consortium with these two approaches has been bad. The Building Science Consortium has concluded that these two approaches are unsuitable for use by the home building industry due to serious pro...