Basements & Slab-On-Grade

Foundations, slab on grade and durable basement finishing

Guide

Frost Heave Prevention Helps Stop Frost Heaving Breaking up Home Foundations

What causes Frost Heave? Preventing frost heaving is down to good foundation design

Frost heaving of home foundations, basements, decks & garden walls in cold climates can cause issues - especially in clay soils that hold water - Ecohome built to prevent frost heave recently, here's what we did. Frost protected foundations - essential in cold climates Protecting homes and buildings in cold climates…

Gabion walls can be used for building homes

Gabion Walls - what is a gabion cage & how to build with them?

Gabion cage walls can add thermal mass to homes without adding significantly to the carbon footprint of a home like concrete can. Gabion walls are retaining walls built by stacking stone in a gabion cage or gabion basket that can serve many purposes but are most often used to create tiered or leveled ground in…

Why basements flood and how to prevent that with a sump pump

Why Basements Flood & How to Prevent Flooded Basements

Basements flood, full stop. As a hole in the ground similar to a swimming pool, once all is done to stop water getting in, we then need to remove any water with a sump pump, a sump pump battery backup & maybe a sump pump alarm to stop basements flooding. Spring flooding of basements is very common and most times can…

Low Carbon Concrete - Lowering the Carbon Footprint of Eco Homes

Low-carbon concrete by CarbonCure Canada - lowering the carbon footprint of buildings

Producing cement for concrete results in high levels of CO2 output and is the third ranking cause of man-made CO2 in the world after transport & energy generation. Low-Carbon Concrete is needed for Building Green Homes. Low-carbon concrete - "green" cement at last?  One of the most essential and commonly-used…

Crawl Spaces or Slab on Grade Foundations?

Slab on grade or crawlspaces, which is better?

One of the first decisions when building a home is what type of foundations to sit your home on - cold-climates, termites, problem expansive clay soils, insulation & vapor & radon barriers all need to be considered. What is the difference between a slab on grade & a crawl space? A slab on grade, or ‘frost protected…

Reduced carbon concrete Patio blocks and CMU

Reducing emissions with CO² cured-concrete

This type of concrete reduces the carbon emissions by 70%, fuel consumption by 30% and water use by 80%. A new cement block manufacturing process developed by an American company named Solidia Technologies® produces 40% fewer emissions during manufacturing than conventional concrete, resulting in a dramatically…

Insulating crawlspaces as part of home renovation

How to insulate crawlspaces properly as part of renovating an older home

Crawlspaces are becoming rare for new home construction in USA & Canada. If you've got a crawls space with damp, mold, odor & cold issues, here's how to insulate it properly to fix it permanently & have a more comfortable home. Crawlspace insulation - be careful to get it right A crawlspace comes with all the…

Prefab frost-protected shallow foundation insulated form kit

Raft slabs - How to build Insulated Frost Protected shallow foundations (FPSF) on problem soils

How to build on sites with expansive soils, high water tables and poor bearing capacity, and to build a frost protected shallow foundation easily in cold climates. A frost protected shallow foundation (FPSF) is an interesting and well-proven alternative to deeper, more-costly foundations in cold regions with…

How to Fasten Cement Board Facing to slab on grade insulation

Finishing the exterior of an insulated slab-on-grade floor

Insulating the exteriors of basements and slabs leaves you with needed to finish the exterior. In this video you see an easy fix to have the exterior surface secured by set concrete, while avoiding any thermal bridges in the process. WATCH MORE sustainable building VIDEOS Once a decision has been made to choose…

Slab-on-grade for Ecohome's upcoming video building guide

how to build a slab-on-grade on standard soil

How to build a slab-on-grade with a thickened edge on standard soil. There are many ways to build a slab-on-grade (or frost-protected shallow foundation), the following is a step-by-step walk though of a thickened-edge slab floor we built. XPS or EPS rigid foam is typically used under concrete slab floors, in this…

Slab-on-grade construction technical guide

Slab-on-grade technical guide

A slab-on-grade home or building is more affordable, more comfortable and more Eco-friendly. Here is a technical guide & design guide for construction of a slab on grade foundation. Slab-On-Grade Construction - Technical Guide   Deciding to build your home with a slab-on-grade foundation instead of a conventional…

News

Carbon-Negative Home Bahama Stands Against Storms

World's First "Tree-like" Home Unveiled: Carbon-Negative and Built to Withstand Extreme Weather

Beyond Bricks and Mortar: Partanna's Carbon-Negative, Storm-Resistant "Tree-like" Home Offers Self-Sufficiency for a Changing World. Imagine a home that embraces nature's wisdom, not just mirroring its beauty but also actively healing the environment it inhabits. This isn't a futuristic fantasy; it's the…

Bill S287 in New Jersey to encourage use of low carbon concrete

State of New Jersey passes Tax Credits Bill for Lower Carbon Concrete

Bill S287 was signed on Jan 30th and signals State sanctioned incentives for the decarbonization of the concrete industry - including the supply, delivery and use of lower carbon concrete. In a breakthrough for reducing the carbon footprint of North American construction, Bill S287 was signed on the 30th of January…

Zero Carbon Concrete Alternative Product Cement Free by Prometheus Materials

A Sustainable, Zero-Carbon Alternative to Portland Cement concrete from Prometheus Materials CO - BioConcrete !

Using naturally occurring microalgae, Prometheus Materials and a team of scientists and engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder have developed a carbon zero alternative to carbon intensive portland cement based concrete... suitable for ready mix. In a recent press release, Prometheus Materials, a zero-carbon…

NAHB finds Slab on Grade Foundations are Most Popular in 2020

Home foundation trends in 2020 are encouraging for sustainability as slab on grade wins

The National Association of Home Builders just completed a study of home foundation trends for 2020 in the US, and the results were both surprising and encouraging! Slab on grade foundations are a clear winner. It's slab on grade foundations for the win! The NAHB study showed that 65% of new single-family home…

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