Planning & Designing Sustainable Green Homes

This section of the Green Building Guides helps define the steps for building resilient, sustainable & healthy homes. If building a new house, improving or renovating an existing home, choosing a building lot or finding Green homes for sale, there are priorities to set & decisions to make - like what's the best wood to use for framing, whether to choose a basement or slab on grade foundation & especially, how to fix and keep to a home building budget. Think to ask questions too!

Commuting

Charging EVs without a private parking space or on the move - the best options

Many of us live in cities where homes like apartments built from subdivided older houses don't have a private parking spaces - as EVs become the preferred option for commuters, what are the solutions for charging an EV in public places or on the move. Any of us who've owned gas powered vehicles over the years know…

Lifestyle, location and commuting

Moving to the countryside? Here's how that can work...

The impact of 2020 and working from home has a lot of people considering moving away from urban centers to the countryside. How do we stave off an environmental disaster of losing greenspace to housing. With so many of us being forced to work from home, this has brought many changes to our economy, our priorities…

Healthy indoor air quality

Buying guide for home air filters in furnaces - HEPA, SMART or standard?

Finding the right high-efficiency home air filter for furnaces & ventilation systems is essential for keeping indoor air clean, healthy & protecting us from allergens, animal dander, pollen, mold spores & maybe worse. What are home air filters used for? Air filters on air handling units such as furnaces, HRV, and…

Lifestyle and environment

Save the whale's (poop) - Save the planet !! (And $2m per whale)

Carbon sequestration, carbon reduction & carbon offset are hot topics in the global fight against climate change & while saving rain forests & planting trees is popular, the IMF say saving the Whales may be the best plan yet. What do whales listen to? 'Pod' casts... Talking of which, I listened to a fascinating…

Planning and Design

Top tips for planning and building a green home on a budget

When building a new home, especially a sustainable high-performance home, planning everything out in detail will save time, money & stress, while ensuring the best possible choice of building materials for the budget. Proper planning is the key to successfully building a sustainable green home. An energy-efficient…

Concept and design

Resilient design features for new home construction

Design ideas and home-durability measures to help families and homes withstand a changing climate. Future-proofing homes: Our society has a collective trust in its commercial building industry to provide us with homes that we assume meet some realistic standard of resilience. They do to an extent, but a very minor…

Materials and resources

How wood structures compare to steel and concrete for carbon footprint

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…

Passive House

Everything you need to know about Passive House certification

A certified Passive House in North America & Canada can be certified by the Passive House Institute PHI or PHIUS, the US certification system. Discover the differences to decide which Passive House certification is best for you. What is Passive House certification? The term “Passive House” was once obscure jargon…

LEED Homes

Canada's first LEED V4 Platinum house - An Ecohome project checklist

Canada Green Building Council President Thomas Mueller calls Ecohome's Edelweiss House "A phenomenal achievement". A LEED Platinum home project overview As building rating systems drive building codes to greater levels of performance, the rating systems themselves need a periodic upgrade to stay ahead of the…

Efficient home design

Ecohome Demo House: high performance, affordable cost

Ecohome's Edelweiss House shows that with thoughtful design, high performance home construction is attainable and affordable, without great sacrifices in space or quality of life. The guiding principles during the design of Ecohome’s Edelweiss House demonstration home - passive heating and cooling, healthy living…

Off-grid and Net-Zero Housing

The Kenogami House: Energy systems in Net Zero Energy home design

The Net Zero Energy passive solar house in Lac Kenogami, Quebec, built by owner Alain Hamel pushes the bounds of energy efficiency. Here is a breakdown of those electrical systems. The Kenogami Net Zero Energy off-grid house is a virtual energy laboratory, and in constant evolution. Every system of this…

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Planning and Design

While building LEED certified houses, Passive House, Passive Solar, ZNE - or any other types of Green certifications & rating systems for better homes can be complicated, the guides are designed to help make building better homes easier by providing practical guidance and information... Even experienced contractors may find building sustainable, resilient, high-efficiency homes daunting so it's probably going to look complicated, but there are many simple, affordable, energy saving & "good practice" home-building construction tips in the Green Building Guides that will improve just about any home.

If building a Sustainable home for your family looks daunting, you can also find more information on Architect designed prefabricated Passive House & LEED ready Kit Homes available in Quebec, Ontario, New York, Vermont, Maine or New Hampshire here that helps make choosing a Green Home easier.