"Renovation"

Renovation / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

Windows and doors

Our top tips for buying high-performance windows

Which windows are best? Windows are essential to our homes, so getting the choice of window right is important. They give us natural light, a way to ventilate the home without depending on mechanical systems, a means of emergency exit, and they offer an alternative way to heat homes free of charge through passive solar...

Wall assemblies - new construction

Dense-packed cellulose insulation wall systems

Dense-packed cellulose insulation - the history In 2005, Metric Homes of Carp, Ontario designed and built Canada's first Energy Star labelled home in Canada. This home was built with dense-packed (or dense-blown) cellulose as the wall insulation of choice. Their intent was to produce a better built home with the goal o...

Basements

Best practices for basement insulation in new home construction

The most common practices currently employed for finishing basement interiors as living space rarely account for the impacts that come with the added moisture load below grade, or the amount of heat that will be lost to the ground. Existing basements are typically under-insulated or not insulated at all, and if they ar...

Basement finishing

Basement renovations: How to prevent mold when finishing basements

...renovation project. It is much more affordable to deal with most humidity issues inside the building. The basement insulation solutions proposed here are for those that have no exterior protection. What causes mold to grow in basements? Mold can grow on virtually any organic material as long as the moisture levels it l...

Insulation and soundproofing

Properly insulating basements and concrete slab floors

How much insulation does a basement floor need? Insulating a basement is a great idea if it wasn't insulated when built, as before we began insulating foundation walls and below slabs (see slab on grade), it was generally estimated that basement heat loss accounted for about 1/3 of the total heat loss of a house. It is...

Kitchens

Pricing green kitchen countertops - there's never been a bigger choice of sustainable kitchen counters

How to price a sustainable kitchen countertop? As a professional cabinetmaker, I have often been asked how much a kitchen costs. There is no accurate answer of course, though when pressed, I would have to say somewhere between $18-30,000. The size of your kitchen, material choices and your taste in finishing makes it i...

Wall assemblies - renovation

Green home improvements: an energy-saving pyramid scheme that actually works!

The best tips to save money and reduce bills? First of all, the best way to reduce bills & save money is to spend as little as possible for the maximum return, as not everyone who wants to be 'green' has a wad of bills they can throw at the latest and greatest renewable technologies for sustainable homes. So where ...

Grants and incentives

Green building tax credits and grants for 2025

...renovations are eligible for a 10% refund of the Genworth mortgage insurance premium. Details here. CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation): Buying an energy-efficient home or making energy-saving renovations can offer a 10% CMHC mortgage loan insurance premium refund, and a premium refund for a longer amortizat...

Kitchens

Granite counter tops

Where to find black granite countertops for kitchens and bathrooms There are substantial environmental impacts that come with shipping building materials around the globe, particularly something as weighty as granite. It is for this reason that the credit MR5 in the Materials and Resources category of LEED for Homes c...

Wall assemblies - renovation

Winter preparation for your home - are you ready for the cold?

Top Tips for preparing a home for winter Extremely low temperatures over winter can test your home in many ways, and sometimes your house will return a failing grade. Even brand new homes built to code can see failures of their building envelopes, windows, doors and ventilation systems during winter, a simple failure t...

Flooring and stairs

Slate tile installation - video

...renovations in the pages below and in the Ecohome Green Building Guide: Is cork a good flooring material? See our cork floor installation video here Durable and healthy eco friendly flooring options for green homes Marmoleum floors instead of linoleum durable, sustainable and healthy How to sand and refinish ...