The Greenstone Home Reference mark: a square quarry tile carrying the letters G R.

Greenstone Home Reference

Working notes on repairing, insulating and upgrading older masonry houses.

Browse all topics

Six topics cover the whole reference. Each one opens with a short explanation of what falls inside it, then lists every note filed under it.

Insulation & Air Sealing

How heat and air actually leave an older house, and what changes inside a wall or roof once you slow them down.

Windows & Doors

Openings leak far more per square metre than the walls around them, and most of that is repairable without replacement.

Heating & Ventilation

Two separate jobs that share the same rooms: getting heat where you want it, and moving moist air out before it condenses.

Plumbing & Water

Knowing what you can isolate, and what changes when you reduce flow at the fixture rather than at the main.

Masonry & Exterior

The rule that governs almost every masonry repair: the material you can replace must be the one that fails first.

Millwork & Finishes

Repairing and matching original timber detail, and the order of operations that keeps a repair from becoming a replacement.