"Basement renovation"

Basement renovation / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

Healthy indoor air quality

Why you should Never Install Air-Con in a Home with a Vapor Barrier

Vapor Barrier + Air-Con = Damp Moldy Walls So here's a little known fact that most HVAC installers won't tell a potential new client for central air; Polyethylene vapor barriers in combination with air conditioning in homes can rot walls because of the condensation they may cause. This is why if you have a newer home w...

Concept and design

How to stay on budget when building a home

...renovation project? PR - Obviously it is important to be rigorous in monitoring costs at every stage. It’s not enough to establish a detailed budget – you need to comply with it, and track all the expenses during construction and renovations to ensure that the established budget is respected. This is where beginning wi...

Wall assemblies - renovation

Should I be renovating my home or tearing it down & rebuilding?

...basement. Cinderblock basement foundation timber stud wall being demolished due to moisture damage © Ecohome Basements are better repaired from the outside if possible but can also be done from the interior if excavating to access the exterior is not an option. For cost consideration, if it doesn’t require major st...

Radon in Homes - Mitigation

Removing radon gas from well water

...basement floor or behind your foundation walls, but rather high levels of radon gas in your water supply. Radon gas occurs naturally as uranium in the soil breaks down, and can seep into your home undetected as it is colourless, odourless and tasteless; it can also dissolve in well water entering your home with the wat...

Grants and incentives

Ontario's Home Energy Rating and Disclosure plan (HERD) is great news for home buyers

...renovation and retrofit programs. “Universal home energy labelling is the single most important tool to increase energy literacy towards a successful climate change strategy,” said Elizabeth MacDonald, CEO of the Canadian Energy Efficiency Alliance. Beyond helping Ontario and Canada meet its climate change targets, thi...

Insulation and soundproofing

Rigid insulation panels: which ones to use for different applications

...basement insulation - which is the opposite of much of the information out there. XPS rigid foam insulation board © Ecohome Note: 1 perm and 60 ng are U.S. and Canadian equivalent rates of permeability, below that rate of permeability classifies a material as a type II vapour retarder, suitable for residential constr...

Insulation and soundproofing

Insulating below slab-on-grade floors

...basement that the idea of building a slab-on-grade creates an instant sense of fear and doom in many. We assure you this is not new, and it works. The reason we build basements and stay 4 to 5 feet below grade is to avoid frost heave, using dirt to insulate. With a slab-on-grade, the difference is you use 'insulation' ...

Crawl spaces

Should I Build on a Slab on Grade Foundation or a Crawl Space?

...basement storage, a mechanical room on the main floor, and no ability to move plumbing fixtures for future renovations. So how to deal with that? No basement storage: build a shed, or build your slab slightly bigger to include room for storage; that can be combined with a mechanical room, and laundry as well. Or, fil...

Basements

Best practices for basement insulation in new home construction

...basements are typically under-insulated or not insulated at all, and if they are, they almost always trap moisture within wall assemblies. This leads to preventable mold growth and rotting in basement walls - often caused by interstitial condensation. The following basement insulation techniques listed here are designe...

Basement finishing

Basement renovations: How to prevent mold when finishing basements

...Basement renovations demonstrating mold growth in internal stud wall © Ecohome Above is a photo of a basement being repaired after flooding. The mold damage you see is from longterm moisture exposure, not the one-time flooding event. This was a typical basement wall assembly, with a stud wall directly against the foun...

Insulation and soundproofing

Properly insulating basements and concrete slab floors

...Basement or a Slab on Grade, in the EcoHome best practice for building Foundations & Basements guide section you will find the basics on foundation, basement & slab design, under slab insulation, site selection & preparation, excavation, drainage & radon gas prevention and mitigation. Technical edit and...