nontoxic Tag

20 Jul

Posted at 11:44h in Featured Stories, Home & Real Estate, Products & Certifications
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Once frowned upon by healthy-home experts, engineered hardwood flooring is becoming a people- and planet-friendly choice Engineered-hardwood-diagram-150x150If you are looking for a new hardwood floor in today’s popular, wider widths, you most likely have seen engineered flooring. Unlike solid hardwood flooring, an engineered floor is put together in layers, using adhesives. And when the healthy-home movement began more than a decade ago, these products were a no-no. But with today’s No Added Urea Formaldehyde (NAUF) adhesives, used by many leading manufacturers, concerns about unhealthful chemical emissions are diminishing. And because engineered products use the premium wood species only on the product’s surface, planet-friendly product seekers can make a stronger case for engineered hardwood.

02 Jul

Posted at 10:00h in Design & Décor, Products & Certifications
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Today’s natural interior design aesthetic includes many flooring products, from natural-fiber rugs to luxury vinyl tile. For this customer, natural means chemical-free wool. Page IMG_0253Elena Page, M.D., knew what she would do when it was time to replace her carpet. An occupational and environmental medicine physician in Cincinnati, OH., Page has a lot of experience in how chemicals can affect indoor-air quality. All carpets from major manufacturers these days have CRI Green Label Plus Indoor-Air Quality certification, ensuring that the products meet safety limits for Volatile Organic Compound (VOC ) emissions set by the state of California. But that wasn’t enough for Page. “I wanted to be sure that whatever I put in my home was not an emitter of VOCs,” she says. “I also care very much about what the workers are exposed to in making the carpet, and synthetic carpets expose them to a variety of harmful substances, some of which are carcinogens.”

15 Dec

Posted at 14:18h in Design & Décor, Products & Certifications
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Zero-VOC hardwood floor finish proves to be unmistakably modern and virtually odor-free Cincinnati Architect Adam Fosnaugh and his wife, Margot, were clear on what their new hardwood floor would have to be: Warm, durable and honest to the material. Indoor-air quality also was key. They selected a palette of light colors and natural finishes, designed, Adam says, “to be minimal and modern with a sense of Scandinavian sensibility. … Living with a two-year-old and being keenly aware of the detrimental effects many building materials have on indoor-air-quality, we were also looking for environmentally-friendly solutions with low VOCs.” With their remodeling spanning weeks and nearing a conclusion, their new White Oak flooring has been installed throughout the first floor, and finished on-site with a zero-VOC, three-step white lye finish.

29 Nov

Posted at 11:01h in Featured Stories, Home & Real Estate, Products & Certifications
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Complaints about carpet pad odors show that researching the underlayment is just as important as the carpet that goes over it green-labelThe homeowner was almost distraught. She had just invested in a high-quality nylon carpet, only to deal with chemical fumes throughout her home as soon as the installation was complete. Now, she was spending hours doing research on the Internet, and she called Natural Interiors® for help. She had a remnant of the carpet and had isolated it long enough to know that it was not the problem. The odors, she had determined, must be coming from the carpet pad. “Can you tell me about chemical-free wool carpet and pad that you carry?,” she asked. “I am thinking that I may need to redo this whole project.” I replied: “Is the company that sold you the carpet and pad going to give you your money back? It would be a real shame for you to have to pay twice for the same job.”

08 Nov

Posted at 09:12h in Featured Stories, Home & Real Estate
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Temperature changes of winter and summer should remind you to get a hygrometer, even if you don't have hardwood floors DSC_0568Colder temperatures usually mean drier air – inside and outside. That’s why hardwood flooring manufacturers issue written guidelines that the owner must keep indoor relative humidity levels between 39 and 60 percent. When humidity drops too low, the floor with shrink. Too high, it will expand and cup. But most people have no idea what their indoor humidity levels are at any given moment. And there are more reasons to know than just for maintaining your flooring’s health. It is important for your own health, too.

31 Mar

Posted at 13:23h in Featured Stories, Products & Certifications
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Confusion and half-truths follow report of excessive formaldehyde in some Lumber Liquidators’ laminate floors Carb II CompliantA customer who has seen the 60 Minutes report about unhealthful levels of formaldehyde in certain laminate floors from Lumber Liquidators now is questioning a flooring purchase she was about to make. “No worries,” her salesman says. “All of our flooring meets California Air Resources Board (CARB) standards for formaldehyde.”  He is misleading, but not intentionally. To assist its salespeople, a national retail group issues an alert to its members that reads: “All of our laminate flooring meets CARB 2 standards.”  Another over-simplification. Most flooring retailers – including those touting “natural” products – have limited understanding of how to gauge a floor’s impact on indoor-air quality. Understanding the evolution of people-friendly products, and keeping up with the ever-changing status of which manufacturer has added a certification and what the certification means, is a specialized field of its own. Compounding the confusion, certifications expire annually.

17 Feb

Posted at 09:06h in Featured Stories, Home & Real Estate, Products & Certifications
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Onsite, UV-cured hardwood floor finishes are starting to beam BulldogWe talk a lot about low-VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) floor finishes, and the scientific advancements that have produced less-toxic polyurethanes and natural oil floor coatings.  But the truth is that our search for the perfect people-and planet friendly option continues daily. “Water-based” and “waterborne” now are second only to “low-VOC” on the list of buzzwords that put our minds at ease. But when you consider that zero-VOC paints are readily available, the VOC content in floor coatings can seem high, in addition to other chemicals that some formulas use. This reality has made the ultra-violent curing machine the latest proven weapon in our arsenal of remedies for unhealthful indoor air. It stops chemical emissions by instantly curing the finish that would ordinarily take days to weeks to completely dry and stop off-gassing. In addition, waterborne polyurethanes with VOC content as low as 17 grams per liter are now available.

09 Feb

Posted at 15:27h in Design & Décor, Products & Certifications
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Natural oil hardwood flooring finishes gain popularity as consumers get more familiar with product benefits Some would say that using plant-based oils to finish a hardwood floor is unique. Not the norm, the road less-traveled and, possibly not suited for standing up to high traffic. But with the number of customers who are beginning to ask about oil or low-VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) floor finishes, I would have to say that a trend is emerging. And floors that are standing up to customers and spilled drinks in a downtown Cincinnati bar where the floor was finished with plant-based oil last fall is debunking doubt about durability.

07 Nov

Posted at 07:10h in Design & Décor, Products & Certifications
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Repurposed wood, certified dimensional tile and natural, zero-VOC finishes position new Cincinnati bar for lasting attention Architects and designers know that designing the perfect bar means creating a unique atmosphere for respite and escape. It must invite, perhaps with warm, dimly lit nooks perfectly suited for comfortable conversation.  It must have an attention-getting focal point, and logical pathways that help customers find their way through the building. Now add to that a requirement for a natural aesthetic that uses building materials that are better for people and the planet. For the design-build team coordinated by Core One Resources in Cincinnati, OH, this meant reusing floor joists for interior woodwork and wall paneling, restoring salvageable wood floors, laying environmentally certified tile and finishing new and old wood floors with odorless, Volatile Organic Compound (VOC)-free natural oil. No, the architect explains, this was not done to seek tax abatements through Leadership in Energy and Environmental (LEED) certification. No certification was sought. Is it possible that today’s green building standards have become common practice for the creators of this new, downtown Sixth Street bar, who simply see environmental considerations as the right thing to do?

18 Oct

Posted at 13:56h in Products & Certifications
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When are pigments dangerous? Q. I just read your article titled “Part Three: The Problem with Paint” published on January 19th, 2011. I have two questions: You had interviewed the owner of Earth Paint, Inc. and he said that "pigments used to color paint should be chosen carefully as the dust from raw earth pigments is often more toxic than synthetic pigments." Is there any way to find out what kind of pigments they use in AFM Safecoat paints? Please advise. I am pregnant and we are planning to paint our house next week and any information you can provide will help us make our decision about which paint to buy. Also, AFM Safecoat has two kinds of paint: Their regular Safecoat and their new AFM Naturals. Which is better? A.  AFM and its dealers use special zero-VOC liquid machine colorants, eliminating the risk of any dust exposure. Unless you are actually mixing dry powder pigments yourself, pigment dust ingestion or inhalation could only occur if you are sanding previously painted surfaces in preparation for a new paint job. Wet sanding and a painter's mask are recommended to avoid this still unlikely exposure.