Safer Foam Insulation Flame Retardants Doing More Harm than Good? Safer foam insulation is on its way to becoming a reality in the US construction industry. Momentum for eliminating unnecessary flame retardants from buildings is growing exponentially. The fire safety benefit isn’t adding up to the known hazards associated with halogenated flame retardants. Leading the

Healthy Building News from GreenBuild 2012 More than 30,000 attendees from across the world swarmed into San Francisco for this year’s international GreenBuild conference. The conference is hosted every year by the US Green Building Council, and it’s by far the largest green building conference in the US. GreenBuild is, by default, mostly LEED-centric, but

Flame retardants creeping you out… For years a small (but growing) group of concerned scientists, designers, and public health advocates have been warning about the dangers of flame retardants. It may seem counterintuitive that flame retardants – intended to reduce risk of harm from fire – could be harmful themselves. However, according to many of

Sick Building Materials Smell Bad- What if it’s too late and the building stinks? At least once a week we get the following call… “We were so careful to only allow healthy materials in our project. But we just moved in and it stinks! We’re worried the building materials smell bad. Can you come test

First, I feel as though I must apologize for not writing more often. In an effort to make it more of a habit I’ve decided to simply write a quick post about pages from our website to share more about the services and reveal relevant stories. I’m starting with soil sampling for heavy metals, pesticides,

Making Water From Air Drinking Water Quality and Atmospheric Water Generators By David Sasse, Environmental Inpector, B.S. General Biology Many people are concerned with drinking water quality and are making water from air in the home.  The booming sales of bottled water is a testament to that fact.  As the world becomes more and more

Radioactive Granite and Quartzite – Risks from Radon A Green Building client of ours is busy selecting interior finishes for their new healthy home. When we get to countertops the inevitable question is asked, “Are there any health concerns about natural radioactive granite and quartzite?” The answer is yes. Some quarries are producing relatively radioactive granite

EMF Resources Electromagnetic fields and radio frequency radiation are increasingly becoming hot-botton issues. A five-day seminar from the Institute for Building Biology & Ecology (IBE) is where Alex first learned about the health affects from EMF, and how to measure and mitigate EMF in buildings. EMF resources are becoming increasingly common, but good sites are diamonds in