Concept and design

Tiny house

Tiny house with attached and mobile greenhouse - good or bad idea?

Are tiny houses, either on foundations or on wheels, a good housing solution to reduce your carbon footprint. The tiny house movement is a fascinating trend that draws attention to one of the greatest problems with the housing industry; how big our homes have become. But the custom homes being built on trailer beds…

Concept and design

Prefab Passive House & LEED ready kit homes - the future of buying a new home?

Prefab homes make choosing an Architect designed LEED or Passive House high performance house design easy. All the important choices of non-toxic Sustainable materials have been made, add a building lot & in a few months you're home & dry (& warm!). Prefab Home kits are ideal for Passive House or LEED certified…

Tiny house

Tiny houses - Washington State promotes tiny homes & eco-villages for affordable Housing in WA

Tiny Houses – Washington State paves the way for tiny home eco-villages & minimum building codes for their construction. WA paves the way for tiny home eco-villages: Tiny houses, also colloquially referred to as tiny homes, are both an increasingly attractive and affordable housing option as well as a trending…

Concept and design

Important tips for a successful build or renovation

Planning and budget tips for home building and renovating. Make a realistic building budget and schedule This is, without a doubt, the starting point to a successful build - don’t underestimate the time and money it will take to complete a build or renovation . Even professional contractors tend to underestimate the…

Concept and design

Smart homes: efficiency, comfort & convenience at our fingertips

Intelligent home devices allow you to control your home remotely, and send you notices of problems. So what is a smart home? Smart homes take advantage of smart phone technologies to provide you with automated control of your homes systems such as heating and lighting. Using our phones to control our homes can make…

Concept and design

How to stay on budget when building a home

Advice from a green building project manager: how to develop a construction budget and stick to it. The following is an interview with Patrick Ranger, General Manager at Belvedair , a construction company specializing in the design and construction of green homes. Patrick is trained in business administration and…

Tiny house

Are tiny houses good in cold climates?

Are you wondering how to build a tiny house for living in cold climates? How much insulation does a tiny house need? See plans for the best tiny house on wheels that we've ever seen. How to heat and live in a tiny house in a cold climate? Are tiny houses a good investment? That depends on how you want to live and…

Tiny house

Ottawa now allows backyard coach homes & high-end tiny house kits

Tiny houses, accessory dwelling units, coach homes; whatever you like to call them, we will soon see more of them popping up in Ottawa back yards. In the fall of 2015, the City of Ottawa conducted a public-consultation survey to gauge interest in a change of bylaws to allow secondary dwellings (Coach Houses or Tiny…

Efficient home design

The pros and cons of thermal mass in buildings

Dense materials hold more heat than light fluffy stuff does. This can work for or against you. Materials in a home that act as thermal mass are things like concrete, masonry, ceramic tiles, even a large volume of wood like timber frames. All materials inside the insulated building envelope will store and release…

Efficient home design

Phase change building materials - natural heat storage in buildings

When a substance melts or solidifies, it absorbs or releases energy. Materials that do that at room temperature can help regulate temperatures in homes. This article was inspired by a podcast I heard at Positive Energy , where I have yet to hear a podcast that I didn't want to listen to a second time, so check them…

Efficient home design

Thermal batteries: how to passively store heat

Just as a regular battery stores electrical energy, a thermal battery stores heat. Solar heat can be collected, stored and distributed later as needed. What is a thermal battery? Thermal mass of any kind can by definition be called a thermal battery, as it has the ability to store heat. In the context of a house…