Building a house is complicated. Learning about building science, materials, and construction through research and documentation.
Welcome to My Renovation Journey I'm documenting my journey renovating a 1950s house from the ground up, applying modern building science principles. Whether you're planning a similar renovation or just curious about building science in practice, this series will show you the real-world challenges, solutions, and costs involved in upgrading a post-war home. The House This 1950s home…
Cost Tracking Dashboard One of the most important aspects of any renovation is understanding where the money goes. Below is a real-time view of project costs broken down by category. Total Project Cost Actual Paid: $0 Quoted (Pending): $0 Total Committed: $0 $0 Planned Budget: $100,000 $100,000 remaining Updated: December 2025 Planning & Design $0 Structural engineering $5,000 Demolition $0 Brick…
Understanding Air and Vapor Barriers Source: Air Barriers vs Vapor Barriers | You NEED To Know The Difference Air Barriers Keep outside air from leaking into your home. Help prevent warm, humid air from meeting cooler surfaces indoors (which can lead to condensation). Vapor Barriers Slow down the movement of moisture through materials. Limit how much water vapor passes through walls. Why It…
Source: Building a Shed When building a shed, selecting the right materials is crucial for ensuring its durability and longevity. One important material to consider is stainless steel, which is known for its corrosion resistance and strength. However, not all stainless steel is the same; different types offer varying levels of corrosion resistance. When using stainless steel, we need to consider…
Exploring Daylight in Your Home Understanding how daylight interacts with a space when designing a home is crucial for comfort and energy efficiency. One powerful tool to help with this is the Daylight Box Web . What is the Daylight Box Web? The Daylight Box Web is a Software that allows you to explore how light enters and moves through a room. By loading weather data (.epw files), you can run…
Table of Contents Introduction Tools for Climate Data Visualization CBE Clima Tool Climate Consultant Conclusion Introduction Climate data for locations around the world can be found on sources such as Ladybug - EPWmap . These data points are crucial for the home design process, helping to ensure comfort and energy efficiency. Tools for Climate Data Visualization Several tools can visualize this…
When planning for a septic system in the Inverness Area of Cape Breton, I received quotes for various systems. Here are the details: C2 System Quoted Cost: $18,700 Issues Discovered After conducting a soil test, we found that the C2 system was not suitable due to: Poor soil quality Insufficient slope As a result, the engineer recommended an alternative system. Peat Moss System Quoted Cost: $43,000…
U-Value The insulation performance of a material. How much heat flow or heat loss occurs. Lower numbers = better performance R-Value The thermal resistance of a material. Resistance against heat flow or heat loss. Higher numbers = better performance Conversion To convert between them it's the inverse (1/X) Metric and Imperial values Important to pay attention to the units! There is both…
Where is energy lost in buildings? When using the IECC 2021 Energy Code it looks like this: Aspect Heat loss % Windows + Exterior Doors 34.7% Exterior Walls 22.7% Slab / Walls to Ground 13% Air Leakage 11% Fresh Air Ventilation 9.7% Roof 6.5% Quite Similar for passive house build: But the overall energy loss is a lot lower. The Energy loss for windows is as follows: Conduction at Window Frame…
The air-tightness of a building is defined as Air Changes per Hour. It represents how many times the air within any given space is replaced in an hour at an indoor-outdoor air pressure of 50 pascals. ACH = (Outside Air Intake) (ft^3/minute) x 60 / Volume of Space (ft^3) ACH50 Quality 7.5 Old Homes, Pre 1981 4.3 Average Home (Ontario) 3.5 2020 Building Code 2.5 Energy Start v12.6 1.5…
Source: Passive House Building Science Details Exterior insulation Loads When attaching cladding to the exterior need to make sure the load is managed. A couple of common siding and the weights are listed here:
Source: Passive House Building Science Details In a Perfect Wall assembly all insulation is on the exterior. However when mixing interior and exterior insulation it's important to maintain ratios between interior and exterior insulation. However when mixing interior and exterior insulation it's important to maintain ratios between interior and exterior insulation. The following table…
There are different techniques to insulate the house. The classical method is having 2x4 or 2x6 wall framing. The interior between the studs is filled with batt insulation. There are a number of options such as ROCKWOOL Comfortbatt or fiberglass insulation. However this method always seemed a bit strange to me as it means we have insulation on the inside, that is broken up by wooden studs.…
Method Summary Frame the house with a continuous air barrier around the whole house. This image from Matt Risinger shows the ZIP System sheathing running up the wall and on the roof. The transition between is taped to make it airtight. The overhangs are then attached on top of the sheathing, as can be seen here: Modified Monopoly Framing This method modifies the "pure" method but uses traditional…
Source: Advantagelumber Wood is often talked about in dimension terms like 2x4 but are those the real sizes? Of course not, that would be too easy .... The Nominal Sizes are the size when it's cut, but after drying and processing the sizes vary. Approximately the sizes below Nominal Size Actual Size (Imperial) Actual Size (Metric) 1x4 0.75″ x 3.50″ 19mm x 90mm 1x5 0.75″ x 4.72″ 19mm x 120mm…
A standard for the design of energy-efficient houses is the "Passivhaus" building concept that is maintained by a German institute. Building Designers use the Passive House Planning Package (~230EUR) to calculate all kinds of factors that go into a house It's quite pricy at around 230EUR. however Passive House Canada provides an older version of the House Planning Package with Canadian…
Source: Build Science 101 - Episode 4 Energy Efficiency and Environmental Responsibility Efficiency is a byproduct of comfort; The one rule for comfort: Heat moves from hot to cold. There are 3 forms of energy transfer. Conduction passing through materials Convection the movement of particles, for example, air or water Radiation Energy that comes from a source and travels through space, e.g. sun…
Source: Build Science 101 - Episode 3 Comfort and Health Humidity should never get to elevated humidity levels (60% indoors) Tuning of the building essential to understand the equations to reach the correct level of equipment example: 70k BTU vs 17k BTU of heating/cooling required for the house BTU - British thermal unit 1 BTU ~ 1 Match worth of Energy 1 Ton = 12k BTU for a 1000sqft space…
Source: Build Science 101 - Episode 2 Durability has to be your number 1 priority Durability is key Keep water away from the buildings; use overhangs that allow the water to fall down away from the building This starts at the design phase; if elements are included to protect from the elements, then the builds are more forgiving can use cheaper materials as they won't be challenged the same…
Source: Build Science 101 - Episode 1 Why we Built? It all comes down to control of the environment.