Green Homes News

I am building a new small house in northern PA (climate zone 6A), which will have a full basement constructed of 10" cast-in-place concrete. We are planning to insulate the…

If you want clean energy but owning a PV array is not in the cards, tapping into a community solar farm could be an option

I've not been able to find much info on the thermal bridging penalty of heavily exposed trusses/rafters.The heel trusses for my mono slope house end up leaving ~24" cavities between…

My friend's 1930's bungalow had the front porch converted to be part of the living room at some point at least 50 years ago. I was helping out replacing the…

Attached is a proposed wall assembly for a Habitat for Humanity, single family, one story house, in Vermont to meet the High Performance Standard per Efficiency Vermont.   It uses a…

Hello!We are currently building a new home, Climate Zone 5.  The builder poured the concrete porch right up against the ZIP Wall Sheathing.  From what I see, I don't think…

I'm renovating a late-1800s house and I want to add some insulation to the walls (carefully, without rotting anything out). Climate zone 5A, southeast Michigan. I'm starting in one room…

Hi everyone,attached are some pics of my ten year old asphalt shingle roof. As you can see, the asphalt shingles are already degraded pretty badly in certain areas. Those areas…

In the research for my new house, which has both a conditioned (unvented) attic and a large stretch of cathedral ceiling, I’ve been struck by the reality that these two…

I have a very old house with a non-insulated gap in my basement ceiling and an exterior brick wall that is at or below grade, making it prone to dampness.…

I have uninsulated CMU walls with stucco exterior, 3/4" furring + 1/2 drywall interior. The 3/4" air cavities are open to the vented attic. I plan to seal the cavities…

The two biggest home improvement retailers in the US each sell a roughly 36" wide bathroom vanity with countertop and sink for $249 that's made of particleboard coated with a…

I compacted the dirt, spread 2.5 tons of gravel, compacted the gravel in three 2-3" lifts, dug footers, and compacted the footers.I only had the jumping jack for a day,…

I've read the ASCE  Section 32 that mentions using a FPSF with a crawl space, which I assume includes a strip footing. The question is how to detail this? I'm…

We are currently midway an exterior insulation project that includes 2" of rockwool comfortboard 80 held in place with 3/4" plywood furring strips.  the plan is to finish with hardie…

A recent deck replacement on my circa 1890 home has led to me discovering some worrisome foundation issues. Even ostensibly simple jobs on my home lead to the peeling of…

A roundup of products designed for water conservation that starts at the tap

We're building in SE Wisconsin (zone 5) using monopoly framing and continuous exterior  insulation.  One part of the house has very large overhangs on the front and the back over…

Hi all, I’m in seismic d2 zone, I see that the IRC requires sill plate anchor bolts <6’ OC and within 12” of plate ends. However I also have quite a…

Last winter we had a manual J/S/D performed on our ~2500 sq ft colonial in New England and installed a Mitsubishi multi-split system. Specifically an MXZ-SM48NAMHZ and a ducted SVZ-KP30NA…