Products We Chose...And Why We Chose Them

Some of the initial and most important decisions we made were the materials that would go into the house. Many "standard" building materials are manufactured with profit in mind, not with indoor air quality or health of the occupants in mind. They are made with ingredients that are cooked up in a chemistry lab. While that makes them easier or cheaper or faster or (fill in the blank)er in the manufacturing process, it results in products that can make people ill. There is a more complete discussion of this after my rant on the page about Building a Healthy House.

So, what products did we choose? And why did we choose them? Read on...

Independent of the manufacturers which are mentioned below, we made some style decisions. No, not because we wanted to stay with the latest, but because we felt that they were proper investments. Read about them here.

Floor insulation: Johns Manville Formaldehyde-free fiberglass
Since formaldehyde has no insulating properties--either thermal or acoustic--eliminating it in the manufacturing process does not affect the insulating qualities of the product. The result is an excellent insulator with no adverse effects on indoor air quality that is held together with an acrylic thermosetting resin.

We used the unfaced batts under the subfloor and in blind corners of the framing. Larry has developed an ingenious system of placing the batts before the subfloor goes down while still leaving them available for removal should servicing of the plumbing be necessary.

While I have my trepidations about fiberglass--that's why I won't have it in the ceiling because it might drift down--I was comfortable with placing it under the subfloor where it can only go down further in the crawlspace.

Caulks and sealants: Henkel GreenSeries
Adhesives, caulks, and sealants are notorious for containing nasty chemicals. After all, there's very little that's "natural" in these types of products. So the goal has been to formulate them with water as the solvent rather than oil as the solvent. Well, the Henkel company has created a whole line of products like this and I am immensely grateful for the contribution they were able to make in our project.

• We used their Acrylic Urethane Indoor/Outdoor Sealant as our primary caulk around windows, siding, and other places.
• We used their Pro-Foam II Minimally Expanding Sealant to seal and insulate around windows, doors, and penetrations of the building envelope by plumbing vents, exhaust vents, electrical and phone lines, junction boxes etc.
• We used their Draft and Acoustical Sound Sealant to close the gaps between the sill and the subfloor.
  

Bamboo Flooring: Wellmade Floor Coverings International
Even though it makes great "hardwood" flooring, Bamboo is not a wood, it's a grass! It's very renewable (fast-growing), with some species reaching eight inches in diameter and 60-80 feet in height in one growing season! The flooring is easy to maintain. The flooring we purchased actually came from Costco mainly due to the price (significantly less than a flooring store) and Costco's excellent customer service and guarantees. But the only reason we were able to consider bamboo is that, even though it does contain some phenol formaldehyde, it is in such trace amounts that it's imperceptable. We tested it by purchasing a box and partially "assembled" a floor in our rental living room. There was no evidence of offgassing. Then we cut one of the boards on a miter saw and checked it. Again, no evidence of offgassing.

Having heard that we would have to be careful with water and bamboo, we took the cut-off piece and soaked it in water for 24 hours: no visible problems ! It's attractive and durable. And since we're using it throughout the house, there are no thresholds!

Joint compound: Murco Wall Products, Inc. You may not think about it, but the customary joint compounds and spackling mixes contain all sorts of polymers and additives, most of which are terrible outgassers. How else do you think they're able to stay moist and flexible and workable for such a long time?

Murco has formulated a powdered, all purpose joint cement and texture compound formulated with inert fillers and natural binders only. Not containing any preservatives or slow releasing compounds, it mixes easily with tap water. That's why we chose it.

HVAC: American Standard installed by SpringAir, Inc.
Heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) is mentioned here, not so much for its lack of formaldehyde and other VOCs, but for its importance in creating and maintaining good indoor air quality. In addition to a very high efficiency heat pump system, we have an ERV (energy recovery ventilator), and, most importantly, a whole house air cleaner. This system runs 24/7 and even during power outages thanks to our whole house generator. Read more about the HVAC system here.

Paints: Miller Paint Company
Paints are notorious for containing VOCs. Coming under more and more scrutiny and regulation in the last few years, paint companies have been forced to come up with new formulations. Miller Paint Company's line of AcroPure® VOC-free paints enabled us to move right in to a freshly painted house.

Kitchen Ventilation Hood: Imperial Cal. Products, Inc.
We chose a kitchen hood made by Imperial Cal Products. This product is a great example of the saying "building a better mousetrap." Kitchen hoods are one of the most important, yet underrated pieces of equipment in a kitchen. Frequently designed to be showpieces, they do not ventilate effectively. And if they do, they are so noisy that the tendency is to not use them. You can read more about our kitchen ventilation system and our innovations here.

Kitchen Cabinets: Our kitchen is about as commercial as you can have and still comply with residential codes. While most residential kitchens have wall to wall upper and lower cabinets, we are using only those cabinets which we need to contain our appliances. The rest of the storage happens in the pantry.

Randy Wilkes, a local general contractor and cabinet-maker made our cabinets. Using panels laminated with maple veneer and white melamine, he meticulously sealed each edge of the component panels with edge-banding to make sure that none of the chemicals that went into the panel substrates could off-gas into the house.

Office Floor Box: Wiremold
Wiremold is a huge company. They have nothing to do with indoor air quality. They are mentioned here because they have superior products for the home office, and support that can't be beat! Our house includes, for the first time (hurray!), a room that was designed and built as an office: it's not a commandeered family room or den, nor a converted bedroom. So we're using a Wiremold floor box for power and datacomm connections. No more crazy extension cords and wires all over the place.

Whole House Generator: Cummins-Onan
Unfortunately, electrical power outages are more common than we would like. In our brief tenure in Southern rural Oregon, outages have ranged from a few minutes to as long as 11 hours. So part of the overall plan for the house was to have a substantial generator to provide electrical power during these utility outages. The primary thought was to have power enough to run the critical HVAC system to keep the air clean, moving, and refreshing. I did an energy audit of everything we had to see what size generator we needed. One thing led to another and we ended up specifying a generator large enough to power our entire house during an outage.

The decision came down to Kohler or Cummins. We chose the latter because of their local office, outstanding support during the sales cycle, and competitive pricing. We ruled out Generac, Centurion, and Guardian (actually the same hardware with different labeling depending on the channel it's being sold through) because of all the comments we found on the web from disappointed customers. Sure, we paid significantly more, but at least we feel we have a unit that will work, and is backed by a strong dealer network. To see the specs and detailed info about our genset, try this page.