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Eco-Renovation Brandt Withers is a resident at Eco-Home™ who has served as a guide and a goad to accelerate and refine our ecorenovation of Eco-Home. Check out Letter from the Director for an introduction to Brandt and why we're going in this direction. Responding to Brandt's continued difficulties in and around the kitchen, I called Mary Cordaro, Eco-Home's healthy house consultant, who referred me to Mike Watkins from SunDance Plumbing to do a more thorough inspection of our stove and gas lines to try to get the gas emissions in the kitchen down to a level that would enable Brant to use the kitchen without holding his breath. She suggested something she called a "bubble test" Mike came with his son, John, and coated every inch of gas pipe under and within the house with a gel that bubbles up wherever there is a leak. Although they found no leaks, John pointed out that a vent pipe at the point where the gas pressure is reduced, which should be venting outside the house had been bent around and was venting under the house. Because of liability issues he said it was the responsibility of the Gas Company to correct that problem. Mike said that the problem with the kitchen range was not a gas leak, but the oven pilot that was producing a lot of combustion fumes (aldehydes) which some people have sensitivities to. His only solution was to replace the stove with one which had an electronic ignition. The obvious choice for indoor air quality would be an electric range, but they are so energy inefficient that I'm not willing to make that trade-off. I'd rather get an efficient gas range with electronic ignition and a good vent/hood to quickly vent out the gas and cooking fumes. Much to my surprise Consumer Reports hasn't done anything on kitchen ranges in the last two years, and my trusty Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy for 1996 had nothing on ranges either. The Gas Company's Energy Resource Center faxed me a flyer on gas ranges that provided some basic guidelines, but the overall message was that all modern gas ranges are very energy efficient. Kitchen designer, Carol Lamkins, suggested I go to Pacific Sales and California Kitchens to get an idea of what was available in the way of ranges, cooktops, wall ovens and vent/hoods. Both Mary Cordaro and Carol said to get "sealed burners" on the range or cooktop, which means that there's no space between the burners and the stove top where pieces of food can lodge. Mary also warned me to avoid ranges and cooktops with digital readouts placed in the front, right at abdomen level of the cook, because of the electromagnetic fields emitted by these devices . My research revealed that I would pay more to replace the small stove I now have with one of the same dimensions than to get a bigger one. But that meant that I would have to proceed with at least part of the kitchen renovation - the area where the new stove would be installed - since a bigger stove wouldn't fit where my present stove now stands. I took that as a cosmic nudge to get on with it. Mary Cordaro shared the interesting information that to protect indoor air quality a range hood with a venting capacity of 250 to 300 cfms (cubic feet per minute) is adequate. This was good news since the price of range hoods climbs to over $400 as the cfms increase. The most economical combination for my needs that also met my health criteria was a 30 inch Magic Chef gas range, with sealed burners for $279, and an Imperial range hood rated at 300 cfms for $127, both from Pacific Sales. Before we could proceed with the actual renovation our electric service and meter had to be relocated since it was on one of the walls to be removed. Mr. Bob Franklin of Bob Franklin Electric was willing and able to follow the specifications written by Steven Scott to reduce electromagnetic fields. The renovation involved removing some walls and wall sections that have lead paint in them. That meant special lead abatement procedures were advisable. I received a very helpful pamphlet from LA Environmental Affairs Department, published by the EPA, entitled Reducing Lead Hazards When Remodeling Your Home. They also gave me the number for the Lead Abatement Program, 1-800/ 524-5323. Alex Gershuni of AG Construction planned the job to remove one entire wall first so we could use the studs removed from that wall to construct and reinforce the new walls. That kind of reduce, reuse and conserve thinking strongly recommended him to me. He also agreed to adhere to the EPA guidelines for reducing lead hazards, and his price was reasonable. Before demolition began everything was removed from the kitchen. __ ml plastic sheets were taped up to completely enclose the work area. Alex and his assistant donned special HEPA respirators to do the work. Water was misted onto the walls to reduce dust production as the plaster walls were removed. Debris was wrapped in heavy duty plastic bags and taped closed. After demolition was complete the area was vacuumed with my Rainbow vacuum, washed down with TSP and vacuumed again. The bagged debris was temporarily deposited in a closed container on site. Alex informed me that a waste hauler would charge over $200 to pick up the debris and legally dispose of it. Although the usual weight limit for hazardous household waste dropped off at the County Hazardous Waste Roundup sites is 125 per household, I was very grateful to obtain permission from the County Office to deposit our dozen or so bags which came to considerably more than that. Once again, Jan Hoag leapt into the breach and hauled our load to the Roundup site in Torrance in her 3/4 ton "Green Dragon." Although the contractor carefully removed intact the studs and bracing from the walls and incorporated many of them into the new construction, he also needed about 10 more studs. Sorting through used studs at wrecking yards would involve more time than was feasible for either of us. Richard Ayerst at Maxwell Pacific, the only source for sustainably harvested wood in our area, said he didn't have any studs. There are engineered wood joists and headers available from The Home Depot??? but no engineered wood studs. Dennis Bottum, environmental architect and teacher, and long, long time advisor on this project, said that light gage metal studs were an architecturally and environmentally acceptable choice for interior, non-loadbearing walls, as these were. The questions that remained were: had the contractor ever used them before and was he willing to? and were there any health considerations? I called Audrey Hoodkiss, a healthy house consultant and founder and principal of "Ecology by Design" a healthy house consultant, regarding the health aspect. As she said, there are health impacts from practically everything, but she felt that a few metal studs embedded in a wall would not likely be a serious problem. Alex, however, had never used steel studs and was reluctant to experiment with them in this job, which was being done on a shoestring. So, I reluctantly authorized purchase of 10 regular wood studs. For the wall sheathing I wanted drywall with recycled content: Domtar "Gyproc," "Gypsonite™" or "FiberBond" was what I was looking for, based on the listings in my ADPSR Architectural Resource Guide. But none of the four or five lumber yards or building materials outlets that I called had any of those. The Home Depot sent me some information on their gypsum wallboards manufactured by United States Gypsum Company. Both the wallboard paper and the gypsum contain significant recycled content, and I was pleased to learn that U.S. Gypsum has been environmentally and resource conservative since the '70s. We're still in the initial stages of the kitchen eco-renovation as of this writing. It's undeniable that trying to incorporate environmental and health features into building adds additional layers of effort, frustration and, oftentimes, expense to an already difficult, frustrating and expensive endeavor. And it's dishearenting to have to settle for something that doesn't meet any of our criteria except that it is available and/or it's within our budget. But we have to keep on trying. Because the more we do it and the more people demand environmental products, the more available they will become, and ultimately, if we persist, along with legislation, preferential purchasing directives and other methods of encouraging and supporting "green building," we will find that environmental and healthy construction will have become the norm. In the meantime we just have to find satisfaction in the small incremental steps we can take. —Julia Russell |