The complete source for building, designing, and remodeling green homes
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New Green Building Products
This week I’ll take a look at four new products of interest to residential builders: a supply fan from Panasonic, a high-efficiency HRV from Quebec, triple-glazed windows manufactured in New…
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A Builders’ Guide from British Columbia
The type of batt insulation that is typically installed between 2x6 studs has a nominal rating of R-19, R-20, or R-21, depending on the type of insulation used and the…
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All About Flashing
Of all the construction-related topics that young builders need to master, one of the most confusing is flashing. If you don’t yet have much job-site experience, you’ve probably got loads…
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All About Makeup Air
Most homes have several appliances or fans that expel air from the home: one or more bathroom exhaust fans, a clothes dryer, a range hood fan, a gas furnace, or…
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Sliding Insulation Between Rafters From Above
It’s harder to weatherize an old Cape Cod house than it is to weatherize other types of houses. The second floor of a Cape Cod house has sloped ceilings, typically…
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Insulating a Pole Barn
In its most basic form, a pole barn is a fairly simple agricultural building or storage structure with widely spaced posts rather than studs for framing. Back in the 1930s,…
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A Production Home Builder Aims for Net Zero
Meritage Homes is the eighth largest new home builder in the country. With headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona, Meritage is now building homes in nine states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia,…
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Which Heating Fuel is Cheaper, Electricity or Natural Gas?
Most green builders want to choose an environmentally responsible heating fuel, which is why an increasing number of green homes are all-electric. To prevent catastrophic climate change, we need to…
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Attaching Ducts to a Heat-Pump Water Heater
An increasing percentage of green builders are choosing to install heat-pump water heaters -- appliances that use an air-source heat pump to extract heat from the air, transferring that heat…
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Installing Rigid Foam Above a Concrete Slab
If you’re building a new cold-climate home with a basement, you’ll probably want to install a continuous horizontal layer of rigid foam under the basement slab. Even though the rigid…
