"Home design"

Home design / Green Building & Sustainable Home Renovation Information & Advice

Concept and design

How to stay on budget when building a home

...design. Choosing a contractor should be based on their reputation and competence, and not on who comes back with the lowest price once the plans are completed. Bring them into the design phase at the beginning rather than waiting until it is done. Also, unlike a designer, a contractor mandated to ensure compliance wit...

Crawl spaces

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

...home The draw backs of building on a slab on grade: Building your home on a slab on grade means you will have no 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 slig...

Flexible house design

...design, but don't stop there. Modern homes can have a lot more features and gadgets than in years past, so it can be really helpful to have a trouble shooting manual and maintenance schedule for the systems of your home. It can come in handy for yourself, but also it's a great feature if you sell your home. Even if you...

Lifestyle and environment

Green buildings are better situated to handle climate extremes

...designed for a specific range of conditions, such as peak temperature, storm surge and average precipitation. Climate change has the potential to undermine some of these assumptions and potentially increase risks to people and property. Fortunately, there are practical steps we can take to understand and prepare for t...