New Healthy Home and Southern Comfort

From the Owners of a New Healthy Home:

“We were absolutely thrilled with every aspect of our engagement with HBS during our recent new home build.  From the outset, HBS did a wonderful job assessing what was important to us from a healthy living space perspective. They helped ensure that those concepts and objectives were translated into specific evaluation of materials and processes used in our build in a timely fashion. They consistently applied a tempered, balanced, and collaborative approach to our contractor when tradeoffs and accommodations had to be made.  HBS also made the science (their expertise) accessible to us, explaining key factors in an understandable way.  Lastly, and equally important, the team was always available to us and very professionally organized, turning around one-off requests immediately, aggregating all decisions in a single, consolidated document.  In all, we were very impressed with the whole team, knowledge, level of engagement, and value added to our new healthy home.”

Happy, New Healthy Homeowners

 

New Healthy Home Consulting Entryway

 

New Healthy Home – Summary

A gorgeous site was selected for this home just beyond the hustle and bustle of Memphis, Tennessee. Homeowners were concerned about all things environmental, but initially wanted to pay particular attention to VOCs, aldehydes (“formaldehyde“), and electromagnetic fields (EMF). The project fell under our Green Building Consulting Department services of Healthy Building Materials Consulting and Building Biology Environmental Consulting.

New Healthy Home Dining Room

 Southern Comfort Healthy Home  –  Process

Owner completed an intake survey from Healthy Building Science. Our survey helped define the owner’s goals for sustainability and laid groundwork for how sustainability questions would be answered by the design-build team along with the review and approval of materials. The contractor followed best practices for managing indoor air quality during construction; natural, low VOC finishes were specified throughout and low EMF wiring and design practices helped ensure low occupant exposure. Special care was given to sleeping and other high use areas. Ventilation and air and water filtration were equally important. Ultimately, the contractors learned many new best practices and the owners were happy their new home didn’t have that “new car smell”.

New Healthy Home Healthy Building Materials Cabinetry

Green Feature – Highlights

  • All natural, zero VOC, and low-toxicity finishes
  • Minimized use of composite wood (formaldehyde) where practical
  • Healthy flooring materials
  • Magnetic field (EMF) shielding around unavoidable point sources
  • Wiring practices minimizing magnetic fields
  • Optimized ventilation and air filtration
  • Whole house water filtration

 

New Healthy Home - Backyard and Pool

 

New Home Healthy Home  – Team

Excerpts from a much larger group! Owners donated to Make-A-Wish Foundation in honor of this team:

Builder: Kircher Construction LLC

Architect: Shapiro & Company Architects

Landscape Architect: Joe Baasch Landscape Architect

Waterproofing and Weatherizing: AAA Weatherstripping Co

Roofing: Armando Depaz Roofers

Lighting: AZ Lightning Protection

Green Building: Building Ecology Research Group

Plumbing: Colonial Plumbing LLC

HVAC Design = Engineered Comfort

Cleaning: Excellent Cleaning

Lighting: Graham Lighting

Windows and Doors: Grandview Window & Door

Wood Flooring: H&H hardwood Flooring Services

Grading: Harris and Son Grading

Building Biology and New Healthy Home Consultant: Healthy Building Science 

Painting: J.B. Painting

Flooring: Kisers Floor Fashions

Lighting: Magnolia Lighting

Data & Security: Security Fire Protection Co, Inc.

Flooring: Signature Floors

Electrical: Spectrum Electric

Sprinklers: Sprinkler Systems LLC

Electrical: Thweatt Electric and General Contracting

Construction: Warren Brothers Construction

Plumbing: Wilburn Plumbing

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