Posts From September, 2023

How to Boost Home Performance and Durability with Foundation Vapor Protection

Contribute to Four Essential High-Performance Goals with Targeted Below-Slab Protection
How to Boost Home Performance and Durability with Foundation Vapor Protection
As a member of the EEBA community, you play a crucial role in leading the way towards constructing homes that are high-performing, healthy, and resilient. Now aligned with this objective are the self-educated homeowners and prospective buyers who are demanding high-performance homes. Because of this, builders (as well as the raters and architects who support them) are looking for product solutions that: Add value to their customers’ investments Demonstrate a core commitment to being a “responsible” builder Differentiate themselves in a competitive marketplace Our hope at Stego (and the purpose of this article) is to help provide useful support and education so that EEBA builders can better understand vapor transmission at the first side of the home - the foundation - and the role below-slab vapor barriers play in achieving high-performance goals in new homes. No, we are not talking about commodity 6 or 10-mil poly sheeting. Minimum residential code (2021 IRC... read more
 

Five Sustainable Eco Homes Built With Style

Think Wood Blog
Five Sustainable Eco Homes Built With Style
The role of the construction industry in combating climate change is a relatively new consideration, but one that is gaining prominence on sustainability agendas at a global scale. At the recent UN Climate Change Conference, the program included a day dedicated to buildings and cities, as well as the Build Better Now virtual pavilion, showcasing seventeen sustainable projects. In advance of COP26, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and Architects Declarehosted a Built Environment Summit, prompting a collective call to the built environment sector to embed, replicate, and scale up sustainable best practice designs. Similar to local recycling efforts, individual home owners, contractors, and developers each have a role to play in reducing carbon emissions at the residential scale. Here are five project examples that illustrate how you can build single-family housing sustainably, with style. Urban Eco Home Infill Non-profit development firm ​Midtown... read more
 

How We Should Build Sustainable Homes of the Future

Schneider Electric Blog
How We Should Build Sustainable Homes of the Future
Compared to many other industries, the construction industry has traditionally been slow at technological development[1]. This is changing rapidly, and more than digitization and emerging technologies, Sustainability is going to become one of the dominant disruptive forces to transform construction industry, and specifically, housing construction, in this century. Clean energy transition will result in green net zero homes of the future that will actively reduce our carbon footprint. Existing buildings are responsible for approximately 40% of EU energy consumption and 36% of the greenhouse gas emissions, meaning they are the single largest energy consumer in Europe. By contrast, well-sealed, insulated, and energy efficient net zero homes of the future will produce as much renewable energy as they consume. They will be carbon-free and the energy bills of their residents will be zero. We may already be on this path towards net zero, but this journey depends on several factors as... read more