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"How to"

How to / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

  • 1 - 11 of 12 Guides
Restored stone farm house with efficient heating
Wall assemblies - renovation

How to improve the energy efficiency of an old stone house in a cold climate

...tone houses are beautiful but can be very cold and difficult to insulate, so heat pumps are a great way to heat them Now you know about how to restore an old farm house for energy efficiency, how to insulate stone walls, and the best heating systems for old stone houses. Find more pages about geothermal, air sourc...

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How to Handle a Power Outage in Cold Weather
Lifestyle and environment

How to handle a power outage in cold weather

...torm of 1998 (also known as the Great Ice Storm of 1998 or the January Ice Storm) was a terrible combination of five smaller successive ice storms. That storm system struck a relatively narrow band stretching from Eastern Ontario to Southern Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in Canada, and from Northern New York to...

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How to use dead leaves in the garden in fall? © Robert J. Pierson
Landscaping

Is raking up dead leaves in fall a good or bad idea ?

...However, mulched soil warms up more slowly in the spring, so you can remove the mulch from the vegetable garden beds to allow the sun to warm the soil or turn them into the soil to provide valuable tilth. Leaves can also be used as a mulch during the growing season in the garden beds to prevent weeds from growing. To u...

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How to restore a cedar wood deck easily
Decks, porches and gazebos

How to restore a cedar wood deck easily

...to get it back to an even clean color, it's time to let it dry thoroughly to prevent the new deck sealer from peeling. For the next steps on renovating a deck, see our page how to choose the best deck stain or paint and how to stain a deck.   Now you know more about how to restore a cedar wood deck easily. Find mo...

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Furnace not heating? Furnace Troubleshooting & Easy DIY Fixes
Heating and cooling

How to troubleshoot a furnace that won’t work.

...to overheat and shut off too quickly. Try those two solutions and let us know if you notice any difference.  Electric furnaces can also stop working ! What to do if a furnace blower won’t stop running When the blower on a furnace won’t shut off, the first thing to check is that the thermostat is set to ON, and not to...

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Faulty Toilet Flappers Leak a Lot of Water - here's how to replace them
Bathrooms

Faulty toilet flappers are the leading cause of leaking or running toilets, here's how to fix them

...to do something about fixing our leaky toilet by changing the flapper to save us some of this precious rainwater in our recovery system tank for next summer's vacation. What tools are needed to replace a toilet flapper? At a minimum, to replace a leaking toilet flapper you're going to need some basic plumbers tools on ...

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Home made DIY laundry detergent from buckeyes / horse chestnuts
Cleaning and maintenance

How to make Eco-friendly DIY laundry soap from Buckeyes / Horse Chestnuts

...How to make DIY laundry detergent from buckeyes - video guide   A reminder - Horse Chestnuts are toxic to eat Very important – don’t eat them! They are safe to touch but toxic when consumed by humans.  And note, that you are looking for horse chestnuts or buckeyes (Aesculus hippocastanum) which are poisonous to humans...

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Future proof your home by preparing and building to for climate change
Planning and Design

Homes built for climate disruptions - a primer for home owners and buyers

...to the topic of risk reduction, which is essential in any discussion about green building or sustainability.  Risk reduction and future-proofing homes Growing risk from storms is one factor, but it’s really compounding historical development patterns: Over centuries we have built near water, and cities continue to grow...

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How to Vent Roofs - the Methods, Vent Types, Fans
Roof assemblies - new construction

Why roofs need to be ventilated and how to ventilate a roof properly

...to seeing – an uninsulated attic space outside the thermal envelope of a home.  Can roofs have too much ventilation? No, as a general rule you cannot have too much attic ventilation, but it does need to be balanced. There can never be too much intake ventilation through soffits but too much exhaust ventilation without ...

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How to Insulate Exterior Walls from the Outside US Canada Ecohome
Walls and Roofs

The easiest way to insulate walls from the exterior in older homes

...tor, and when you have metal that passes from one side of a wall to the other, you have a thermal bridge, which is a path for heat to leave your home, and money to leave your wallet. To those of you living in Toronto or New York in older homes, this also applies to the elegant brownstone rowhouses, townhouses, and tene...

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How to Build a Frost Protected Shallow Foundation (FPSF) Forms
Delivery: radiant, forced-air and decentralized

Design and construction of frost-protected shallow foundations with radiant heat

...to the timelapse video showing how to build frost protected shallow foundation forms, click here.  Tie the bottom of the precut foam foundation form elements together by simultaneously installing two courses of expanded high-density polystyrene (EPS) insulation board, tied together and to elements with 6” nails to keep...

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