Thomas from London, Ontario writes: "We have an electric water heater. To conserve electricity, I turn the heater OFF at its circuit breaker at night before retiring and then ON when I return from work. This usually gives plenty of hot water while at home. Does this cause any premature "wear ...
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) does not recommend the use of any blown-in insulating material inside "enclosed vertical cavities" (that's a fancy way of saying "walls that are not open"). They feel that techniques of installation and verification during installation are not good ...
Heat recuperation, or the recovery of heat from things that we normally throw away can be a significant part of energy savings. Most energy efficient houses today have Heat Recovery Ventilators that steal the heat out of stale air before throwing it out of the house. Finally some Canadians have...
Yes!Traditionally thermal windows were held apart by a hollow tube of aluminium and then sealed with some sealant over that. Of course the aluminium let a lot of cold come from the outer window to the inner window. (Actually cold doesn't exist -- it is just the absence of heat and heat moves no...
What is an Enviro Home? It is an energy efficient R-2000 house that in addition meets a series of environmental requirements that relate both to the process of construction as to the final quality of the house.One example of environmentally friendly construction practices is the re-use of wood. ...
Ted is looking to build his own home and wants to know if he can get a book that will give him the specs for an R-2000 home. He wants to do it right!The answer is Yes and No, Ted. There is a publication that illustrates many of the techniques used in R-2000 homes, in fact there is a new edition...
Automatic set back thermostats will drop the house temperature during the night and bring it back up before you get out of bed in the morning, saving you significant heating dollars. But do they work with radiant heat?The answer is yes and no -- don't you love that?If your radiant heat is a very...
All too often people buy products or services to lower their heating or air conditioning bills that are not the best investments. They may be good products and good services, but they may not the real priority or the best payback for that particular house. But of course any salesman will tel...
Wood is not as good an insulation material as is any of the products we call thermal insulation: fiberglass, Styrofoam etc. Yet up to 24% of our walls are wood all the way through. Metal framing is even less resistant to heat loss than is wood. Typically the insulation is placed in-between the...
Temporary caulking is a transparent caulking specifically designed to be put on a window frame in the Fall and then peeled off in the Spring. It is used to actually caulk old windows, usually sliders, shut for the winter because their weather-stripping just isn't keeping the cold out. Remem...
