Lumber Liquidators Formaldehyde Testing A recent investigative journalist story exposed Lumber Liquidators formaldehyde testing and revealed a rather unfortunate tale that may affect hundreds of thousands of homes across the US. During active Federal investigations for suspicion of using illegally harvested lumber from Russia, it turns out one of the largest flooring distributors in the US

What is the Next Cigarette? When people learn of the similar legislative history of tobacco, lead, and asbestos… the astute audience often asks, “What is the next cigarette?” The road to law in the US is covered in pot holes and more curvy than Lombard Street. A quick look at the history of cigarette laws will

What is Asbestos? How Dangerous Is It and What Is It Doing In My House ? These are all questions we’ve asked ourselves at one point or another.  We’ve all wondered WHY would something potentially as carcinogenic  would have been used with near-abandon for so long? Why would this potential carcinogen be lurking our homes,

Understanding LEED IAQ Testing Requirements LEED 2009 and LEEDv4 both have credits that require building flush-outs or building air quality testing prior to occupancy. The credit requires that after construction ends, the GC must install new filtration media and flush-out the building by supplying a total air volume of 14,000 cubic feet of outdoor air per square

Microwave ovens work due to the fact that radio-frequThis technology is in the majority of homes and businesses. Precautions to reduce exposure of EMR from microwave ovens encies/microwaves produce dielectric heating of water molecules when produced with enough wattage.  This effect generally affects outer 1” to 1-1/2” of the foodstuff’s water molecules, hence the reason reheating a thick

Does Stainless Steel Leach Chemicals? There is a lot of information in the blogosphere about health and safety in cookware, but when a client asked whether stainless steel leached dangerous chemicals, I was unable to find a quick answer to her question. I decided to look into the issue of safe cookware myself. In one 2013

Testing a new car for VOC’s and Formaldehyde Healthy Building Science recently leased a brand new 2013 Volkswagen Jetta TDI Clean Diesel for use by the inspection department.  While the car is very nice, low emissions and great mileage, it definitely has that New Car Smell.  Being the science geeks we are at HBS, I

Dirty Electricity Concerns? In the recent blog of September 10th, 2013, EMI and LEDs – Not all LEDs are the same! we described dirty electricity and examined several brands of CFLs and LEDs.  This blog tests several more brands of LEDs to determine which produces the least amount of LED dirty electricity . It has

Recently I was helping a client select ceramic tiles in her new home, and my initial instinct was to approve all the tiles as “healthy” without much research into their contents. I couldn’t imagine there would be any toxicity issues with lead in ceramics. Wasn’t Lead Banned in Ceramics Along with Paints? After reading that one

When performing EMF surveys many “EMF consultants” only evaluate low-frequency magnetic fields.  When folks call and say they “have an EMF meter” and are measuring “high emf,” they generally have a Gauss meter and are measuring magnetic field field strength or magnetic flux. Most Building Biologists focus on Alternating Current (AC) electromagnetic fields, and in addition