Alternative Building Materials

There are many ways to build a house to make it more environmentally friendly. One way is to use alternative building materials which are recycled, from renewable sources, or energy efficient. Let’s look at some of the choices of alternative building materials and the pros and cons of each type. Read more…

Building Eco Friendly Homes

In building your new home, or remodeling or adding onto your existing home, you should consider building as eco friendly as possible. There are several ways to build eco friendly homes that are easier on the environment and you should consider incorporating as many aspects of environmentally friendly building practices as possible. Read more…

Defining Sustainable Building

Sustainable building practices encompass a whole host of components. Environmentally friendly (green) building practices and materials are all the rage now, but what exactly is sustainable building? Read more…

The Essentials of Timber Framing

Timber framing uses heavy timbers to form the framework of the building. Timbers typically measuring 8″ x 8″ or greater are used to construct the building, allowing large open spaces to be created, due to the weight bearing capacity of the huge members. Often the timber framing is left exposed as an architectural detail offering visual interest to the interior or exterior of the structure. Read more…

Green Building Materials

Everyone is, or should be, environmentally conscious these days. ‘Green’ terminology has taken over many conversations, so let’s define green building materials, and how best to use them in your building projects. Read more…

Building a Green House

According to the National Building Museum these are the 5 principles of building a green house: 1) Optimizing use of the sun, 2) Improving indoor air quality, 3) Using the land responsibly, 4) Creating high-performance and moisture-resistant houses, 5) Wisely using the Earth’s natural resources. Let’s look at each one of these in building a green house… Read more…

Using The Land Responsibly

I bet it rarely crosses people’s minds that there are ways to use even the tiniest urban lot responsibly or ecologically. They look for a “good neighborhood”, or a good school district– which are important. Or a new subdivision, maybe without building covenants so they can build the kind of house they’d like without superfluous restrictions. Read more…

High Performance Moisture Resistant House

Building a high performance and moisture resistant house comes down to great insulating, great weatherproofing, and controlled ventilation. This doesn’t necessarily mean that expensive and high end products have to be used. Read more…

Wisely Using the Earth’s Resources

Wisely using the Earth’s resources is a challenge for most of us in “developed” countries. For the most part we’re so used to having warm but inefficient houses (because heating costs have historically been low), the luxury of jumping into our cars on a whim to get us anywhere we desire, and lounging under a hot and steamy shower at least once a day. Read more…