Handing the keys to the new owners of a home built by students completes a long journey for a carpentry school in a small Quebec town. Educators at the Chateauguay Valley Career Education Centre (CECVC) in Ormstown, QC wanted to offer their students something beyond the standard skills they would get from most…

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 Sustainable…

The owner of this beautiful prefab eco home, Roman Szumski, is a physician and pathologist & was deeply involved in the process of designing & constructing a healthy home for his family. Prefab LEED Platinum House Kit, Montreal Ellen and Roman Szumski earned LEED® Platinum certification for their home in Labelle…

两种类似于交叉层压木材的新型大面积木板正在冲击北美建筑市场。近年来，商业建筑部门热情地采用了交叉层压木材(CLT)，利用它作为基础结构，也作为设计特色。The assembly of…

Both Plywood & OSB have benefits & drawbacks, with much misinformation about Permeability - EcoHOME investigates the latest Data for new Code to help make the best choice. OSB v Plywood - Which is Best? Odds are, that if you pass a housing development of wood-framed houses, it will have OSB (oriented strand board)…

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…

We all like money saving ideas for the home to keep our bills and energy use to a minimum, one of those ideas is low-flow shower heads. Are low flow shower heads worth it? So, let's start with this somewhat shocking reality - North Americans will on average use over 1.4 million litres of water per year, or about 4…

位于埃德蒙顿的温莎公园净零住宅获得了2017年加拿大绿色建筑技术奖，证明了绿色建筑是可能的和美丽的。作为这个净零能耗住宅建设项目的业主，我们既是设计师又是总承包商。The objective for the…

How to sort and dispose of household waste responsibly – food waste, paper, glass, paints, solvents, batteries, etc.… here is where to send stuff so it does the least harm. Curbside pickup of garbage, compost and recycling: To facilitate recycling and waste management, first determine just what services are…

The Lockeport Beach house in Nova Scotia is the Residential winner of the 2017 Canadian Green Building Awards. Originally published by our print affiliate SAB Magazine Jury comments: This house has a light environmental footprint that derives from the philosophical approach taken by both the client and the…

Dust and chemicals in building materials can trigger permanent respiratory issues such as asthma; here are some ways to safeguard your air and health while work is going on. Construction is a dirty business, and living in a home under renovation can aggravate asthma and other respiratory illnesses, it can also lead…

The Tesla Solar Roof is available this summer in Canada but it won't be cheap. Tesla's Solar Roof hit the news last year on the heels of their Powerwall home battery, both of which brought a lot of great attention to home solar power generation. When we first reported on it during that exciting news cycle, there was…

How to prevent flooding, sewage backup and leaks from appliances with a couple of 'smart' devices. Preventing flood damage in basements is a hot topic as we are regularly seeing the effects of climate change in the form of extreme weather events and unpredictable weather patterns. Snow melt combined with torrential…

CaGBC绿色建筑项目副总裁Mark Hutchinson谈到了新的零碳建筑倡议。sae: CaGBC希望通过零碳建筑倡议实现什么目标?Mark Hutchinson: The CaGBC launched the zero carbon building initiative in 2016 to champion the move to…

Follow owner/builders Sarah Cobb and William Murray as they build a home targeting both Passive House and LEED Certification. Building a Passive House that's also LEED certified This is an owner blog EcoHome posted following the personal experience of Sarah Cobb and William Murray of Rocket Construction Inc. as they…

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…

Why are some homes more comfortable than others? Learn about how to design a home for human comfort, which also makes for a more durable and efficient home. Have you ever noticed that at times you can feel cold in your home even though the air temperature is exactly where you like to keep it? That's…

High levels of radon gas in the air of your home might be coming from your water and not the floor of your basement. It is a very wise idea to have the air of your home checked for high levels of radon gas. Health Canada has identified exposure to radon gas as the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking…

The SANC02 is the first heat pump water heater available in Canada to use outside air for heating water. Great technology, if a little pricey. There are many manufacturers of heat pump water heaters on the market, which, rather than heating water with an electric coil as a normal electric hot water tank does, employ…