What is the Difference Between a Truly Custom Home and a Luxury Designer Home?
Custom and designer luxury homes both deliver beautiful results, but they ask very different things of the homeowner. Here is how to tell which fits you.
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Building a Sustainable Future
Building with Integrity: The Quiet Power of the Butterfly Effect
Building Green Comes Down to Integrity Building “green” for me comes down to integrity. It’s about being true to what I believe — that what we do matters, even in ways we can’t always predict. Small Actions, Big Effects I’ve always felt a pull toward the idea of chaos theory — th…
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How to Prepare for Your Custom Home Design Kickoff (Without Doing Homework You’ll Regret)
A Dueck Builders prep guide for crafting “Spaces That Speak Your Story.” What this is: A simple, high‑impact guide to help you arrive confident and prepared for our first design meeting—without pre‑filling our internal design brief. Read this, gather a few items, and we’ll lead y…
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Get Your Winnipeg Home Summer-Ready
After a long, harsh winter in Winnipeg, summer finally starts to peek through. But before you fully embrace those long, sunny days and occasional thunderstorms, it’s time to give your home a little TLC. Whether you’ve been battling freezing temperatures or are looking forward to…
Read More Building Links
Building Links Links to information that you may find useful in thinking about your custom, eco-friendly home. Progressive Home Warranty Resources Efficiency Manitoba How the Zuba-Central Heat pump works Dueck Builders Standards of Construction Winnipeg Residential Permits Prefer…
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Generational Custom Home Builders in Winnipeg
As a multigenerational custom home builder in Winnipeg, Dueck Builders runs into a lot of fun project concepts. Recently we had the privilege of designing and building a home that houses four generations of the same family! This unique project was designed to reflect the growing…
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Sustainable Homes Without the Confusion: How to Build Smart and Efficient Homes
What Is a Sustainable Home? A Clear Guide by Dueck Builders Terms like “sustainable homes,” “eco-friendly building,” and “green construction” are everywhere—but what do they mean? At Dueck Builders, we believe sustainability isn’t just a trend. It’s a smart, responsible way to cr…
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Why Natural Gas Is More Sustainable Than You Think
As a self-proclaimed sustainable home builder, Dueck Builders really cares about carbon footprint. In fact, we were the first residential company in Canada to use EcoPact concrete from Lafarge. We were also the first to use their most stringent eco-pact Max and offsetting remaini…
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How to Choose the Best Foundation for Your Winnipeg Addition
Welcome to Winnipeg Building! If you are one of the lucky people who gets to call Winnipeg home, this blog is for you. If you are even more lucky and planning an addition to your home, this article is for you! The most important part of your new addition is not the countertop, fl…
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4-Plexes and Feces - Grey Water Recycling's role in Winnipeg
As the City Expands Housing Opportunities, Concerns Arise About Infrastructure Readiness, Can Grey Water Recycling Solve Them? The Situation - New Zoning Bylaws Allowing Density Winnipeg, November 7, 2023 — Winnipeg's recent decision to consider adopting a zoning change allowing…
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The Hidden Reason Your Basement Never Feels Warm (and How to Fix It)
Basements have a reputation for being cold, dank, and uncomfortable. Even with a good heating mechanism they can be uncomfortable places. Why? Mean Radiant Temperature The answer has to do with Mean Radiant Temperature (MRT). The mean radiant temperature basically refers to the a…
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How To Select a Good Custom Home Builder
Building a custom home is one of the biggest investments of your life — financially and emotionally. Choosing the right builder can make the difference between a joyful experience and a stressful one. You’ve probably spent hours collecting ideas, sketching floor plans, and saving…
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What is a Sustainable Home?
Building a home that’s beautiful, efficient, and environmentally responsible isn’t just a passing trend — it’s the future of homebuilding. But with so many terms floating around — green homes, net zero homes, passive houses, and sustainable homes — it can be hard to know what the…
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Why Should I Have an HRV/ERV?
The Importance of What We Breathe The pandemic changed the way we think about many things. One important change is that it forced us to think of the importance of consistent air exchange in our buildings. We focused on air changes and bringing fresh air into closed places because…
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What is Ice Damming and How Do I Fix It?
Too hot? Ice dam! Call the roofer or the framer team! If you came to this blog today expecting to get a catchy song stuck in your head, congratulations! If you came rather to hear some building advice that's applicable to any new build, or existing home, it's your lucky day! All…
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You'll Save Money and Live Better in Your Sustainable Home!
The Marshmallow Test — and What It Teaches Us About Home Building It’s 1970. You’re watching your child through a one-way mirror at Stanford University. The researcher sets a single marshmallow on the table and says, “If you don’t eat this for 15 minutes, you’ll get two marshmall…
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Why Should I Build a "Sustainable" Home?
Imagine this. The year is 168,000 BC. You've just returned from a successful deer hunt. You're sitting around the fire with a handful of berries trying to stay warm. The nights are getting cooler again for some odd reason. You see your crazy neighbour Gorg rubbing a rock back and…
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A Quick Primer On Manitoba's Third Party Warranty
"Would you care for extended warranty? For only 75 dollars you can protect your purchase for 3 years!" If I had a dollar for every time I heard something like that, I would be able to afford extended warranty! It's offered on seemingly every consumer product offered these days. I…
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The Hidden Dangers in Your Indoor Air - How to Build a Heathier Home.
You’ve finally moved into your dream home — the furniture is in place, the curtains are hung, and everything looks perfect. But have you ever stopped to think about the air you’re breathing? That “new home smell” might seem fresh, but it can contain hidden pollutants that affect…
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Why Do We Say We Are "Truly Custom"?
Our favourite compliment we've ever heard on one of our builds was from our siding guy. He said "this house looks just like the home owner!". We were thrilled to hear that because as a custom home builder, our goal is to make sure you shine through the walls of your home, and tha…
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The Power of Home
Good afternoon friends, Lately I've been working with a charitable organization in developing affordable housing here in Winnipeg. They've reminded me and got me thinking about the power of a home. Your home is your sense of safety, security and well-being. It's where you let you…
Read More The Importance of Honesty
"I didn't punch him or hit him" is a line I'm hearing more and more. I parent an awesome 3 year old and a fantastic one year old. Jaxon is starting to get into Henry's hair a little more often lately. Suddenly he's no longer the perfect little brother, and he's capable of wanting…
Read More Benefits of Relational Home Building
I'm sure you've heard the stories before. The ones about subcontractors not getting paid, or work being done unsatisfactorily. You maybe have heard about people bragging how they took advantage of a subcontractor. Unfortunately these conversations are not uncommon in business. Th…
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Joist End Details
This resource was born out of a recent job one of our contractors did recently. They had to replace some insulation that was improperly installed around joist ends. This job wasn't a proper vapour barrier, and rather than preventing moisture from making it to the joist ends, it w…
Read More Before it gets Better
So cue up the mini-excavator. We spent a day digging drain lines into the back yard, and sloping the ground around the house to get proper drainage. Saturday evening was not a highlight for my household. We felt like we had taken a larger bite of yard-work than what we could hand…
Read More 5 Tips to a Happier Office Job
Good morning friends! I used to get the privilege of sweating like crazy all day, getting covered in saw dust, ripping my Jeans, scraping my knuckles and exhausting every joint. I developed a lot of good habits, lifting with my knees, sweeping up every day after work (Thanks Alvi…
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Designing Your Best Home
How can Dueck Builders help to design and built the home that is best for you? The design / build journey can be a confusing one. There are so many choices and no clear-cut answer to questions such as: what is the best siding, or flooring, or window option. All these options come…
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And now for something completely different...
Seven years ago I drove a 2006 Mustang (that I was about to crash and then trade for a truck). I didn't own a house, I was living at home at that point. I had no idea that in one short month True North Sports and Entertainment (TNSE) would make a city changing announcement. In Ma…
Read More Berkley Betterment!
And we're done! The renovations are finished (except for the a/c, a bit of ductwork, a garage door opening, a rod for the main closet, and a few other odds and ends). But we are moved in (except for my tool room needs organizing, the garage needs organizing and the boxes in the b…
Read More Are Solar Panels Feasible for You?
Good morning friends! During our Ask the Author feature, we got this question posted on our blog. “I’m interested in putting up solar panels, but I live in a century home and I’m not sure if my roof can handle the weight of them. I have 10″ roof boards on the roof deck and the ra…
Read More Ask the Author
Today I have run out of productive ideas of things to write about. So I'm doing what any good blogger would do, and am throwing it back to our followers. If you have any pressing questions on building, renovating, or otherwise improving your house please ask away! I will do the n…
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Captivating
What is in a word, a blog post, an ad, a picture that hooks the viewer? How do communication mediums like songs, writings, or pictures communicate so intimately with diverse people groups? What is it that captivates? Moreover, why is a builder writing about captivating? Google de…
Read More Why Do We Do What We Do? (Josh Episode)
Good morning friends! Today we're going to get into a short blurb explaining to you why we do what we do. Why Dueck Builders tries to push sustainability through transparent contracts and cost-plus building. First let's tackle why we do cost-plus building. For me this is an easy…
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Renovation tips
Good afternoon friends. Well we're one month into our renovation in Charleswood. A lot has changed in the house! We're waiting on bated breath for the painting stage to make us look closer to done. It's a fun project but can be stressful. Here's a few reasons why: 1. Change order…
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High-tech, Affordable Radon Detection
Hi Friends! Today we're going to go over a little product that I'm very happy I bought. Recently I purchased the Airthings Wave to monitor the radon levels in my own house. I will assure you this is one of the best things I've invested in. When you get it out of the box it comes…
Read More How Google Reviews Help Your Favourite Small Business!
Good afternoon Friends! Today I'm writing a quick blurb on reviews. Growing companies like ours sometimes struggle to find credibility. These days it is super easy to find companies but how do you determine the reputable ones? I want to propose two of the easiest methods. First,…
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How to Make Decisions in a Renovation
Good morning friends! Today we're going to talk about doing things right. Gina and I recently bought a house in Charleswood! YAY! We're going through some extensive renovations and are on a budget. We were hoping to do all our renovations for 37,000. I'll admit I've already "sign…
Read More Why it's nice to see a model!
Today's blog will deal with one advantage we like to offer our clients. We use SoftPlan to do all of our modeling and that works to your benefit in a few ways. As proof, what helps you make a decision on kitchen layout better? This Or this? When you're debating how a kitchen layo…
Read More Pale Blue Dot and Top Choice
Allow me for one day to pump our tires for a while. Dueck Builders has recently won the Top Choice Award for Winnipeg Home Builders. This excites me for a couple reasons. It means that throughout our builds we've made friends. Friends that will take time to support us and vote fo…
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Happy New Years!
It's a new year! Another opportunity to start over with a clean slate. Have you kept your resolutions so far? This year I made two resolutions. 1) Starting with 3 reps of 10 pushups per day I will add five pushups to the reps every month. Meaning in December I should be doing 3 s…
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Insulation
Here's an interesting one. This is a topic of much discussion in the green building community, the building official community and the home owner community. What insulation should I use to keep me warm (or cool)? There are many insulation products available, so here is a quick pr…
Read More Top Choice!!
Dueck Homes is proud to announce that we are an Official Nominee for the 2018 Top Choice Award. Thank you to all who have taken the time to nominate us! Now, we need your help to WIN! Voting is now open and if you feel that we have earned your vote, we would appreciate you taking…
Read More Manitoba vs Canada: Climate Change & Carbon Tax
Hi all! You may have heard through various media outlets that a federally mandated carbon pricing system is coming up. January 1, 2018 will mark the beginning of our first national carbon pricing plan. Dubbed the Pan-Canadian Framework this will be implemented as a minimum action…
Read More Welcome to your (Dangerous) new home! Pt. 2
Hi guys, Part one dealt with radon and other VOCs and offgassing. In part two we're going to quick highlight some structural concerns to be aware of. We're going to talk about TJI's. Now the point of these articles isn't to elicit fear. We want to show you that we care about your…
Read More Welcome to your (Dangerous) new home!
So this post might sound like a doom and gloom sky is falling post. But hear me out! There's some really good information in here about protecting yourself and your loved ones in your new home! Have you heard about VOC's (volatile organic compounds)? Do you know about the dangers…
Read More #TuesdayTips
Here's a bunch of unsolicited free advice from the friendly staff at Dueck Homes. Not sure if you'll find it helpful, humorous or just a waste of time. While I was framing, I thought I'd write down ideas or tips I though of through my chats with peers on site. So the following ma…
Read More 5 Simple Winter Home Maintenance Tips for Winnipeg Homeowners
Here in Winnipeg, we all know winter isn’t just a season — it’s a lifestyle. The cold winds, the snow, the chilliest mornings — we endure, adapt and, yes, even embrace it. That said, your home is getting a full-on test every year when the thermostat goes up and the mercury drops.…
Read More A Conversation About Branding
Wow what a process! We've been spending the last week in the office doing a bit of re-branding. Re-discovering our passion for building, re-tooling our approach to business and dreaming up a new way to be seen by our friends and clients that builds upon what we believe is a very…
Read More Benefits of Urban Living
Good Morning all! Yesterday we talked about a few advantages and disadvantages of rural living. Today we're going to try digging into a few pros and cons of building your custom home in city limits. Again I don't expect this to be an exhaustive list, but rather a simple list of o…
Read More Benefits of Rural Living
Good morning friends! Today will be the first day of a two part series comparing rural and urban living. Most people will have an idyllic concept of their dream home location, so hopefully these posts will only address some of the more "hidden" advantages and disadvantages. Advan…
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Happy Thanksgiving
Good morning all! Lately the topic of Thanksgiving and thankfulness have been on my mind for some strange reason. Something about the fall weather? Something about my neighbour baking a pumpkin pie for me? I'm not quite sure. In the spirit of the season I'd like to post what I'm…
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Siding Choices
Good morning everyone! Today we're going to quick chat about siding options. There are many options boasting different advantages. What is right for you will depend on style, and desired performance/maintenance routines. This will serve as a quick introduction as there is a vast…
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A Primer on Contracts
Good morning friends! Today I would like to dive into another aspect of who we are and how we do business. Today we will tackle the contract. There are two main types of contracts in the home building industry. 1) Fixed price and 2) Cost-plus contract. I want to briefly describe…
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City of Winnipeg Growth and Impact Fees: Explained
Happy Friday!! Today we're going to quick delve into something that has confused and worried a lot of people. But have no fear, I bring good news! We keep hearing about the city of Winnipeg's new growth fee implementation. Customer's are concerned and don't know what's going on.…
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The Pane of Picking Windows: Window Wisdom for Winnipeggers
Balancing Solar Heat Gain & Sustainable Building When it comes to keeping your home comfortable in Winnipeg’s extreme weather—where the winters are frosty and the summers surprise you with bursts of heat—choosing the right windows is as crucial as picking the perfect pair of mitt…
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What to Expect When You're Expecting... To Build a Custom Home in Winnipeg!
Building a Custom Home? Why an Interior Designer is Your Secret Weapon Building a home is exciting—it’s a chance to create a space that truly reflects your lifestyle. But let’s be honest, it can also be overwhelming. At Dueck Builders, we’ve walked through this journey with many…
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Saving on Building Ownership Costs
Hi all, In today’s home building culture we often get asked about energy payoffs and costs of ownership. These are sometimes difficult questions to answer as there isn’t a plethora of information stating which upgrade pays off when. In some of our previous posts we’ve written abo…
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Furnace Replacement Tips
Good morning all! How many of you have woken up cold on a winter night? In my case, that would be a great thing, I love the room cold. In my wife’s case that would be a bad start to a rough day! And if the problem is the furnace not doing what it was supposed to do, then we’re bo…
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Thermal Bridging: What Winnipeg Homeowners Need to Know
Living in Winnipeg means facing some of the harshest winters in Canada. With temperatures often dropping well below -20°C, every bit of heat loss matters. One of the hidden culprits behind unwanted energy loss is thermal bridging. In simple terms, thermal bridging happens when he…
Read More Floor Your Information
Good morning, happy Friday! This post today is going to deal with flooring choices. When you’re building or renovating a huge question that will come up is what do I want to walk on? It floors a lot of people. The fact is that the incredibly wide set of options can be very intimi…
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Water Heaters
Hello again! Today I’m going to chat with you guys a little bit about domestic hot water heating. Hopefully this post will get us all into hot water. For cheaper preferably. I want to highlight a few options, what their advantages are and disadvantages are. For every house there…
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ICF vs Conventional Concrete
ICF vs Conventional Hi guys! Here we are already getting to the fun stuff! Lots of you might be wondering when building your home “what’s the deal with this ICF?”. There’s lots of info on ICF and the technology used in keeping basements warm and dry. Provided you know where to lo…
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A New Beginning
So here's the start of something new for us. Dueck Builders is entering the blogging world. We're going to be going over things from foundation options to energy efficient upgrades and payoffs to how you can live in your house for free for up to 60 years. The following blog posts…
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