It’s time for a change – and a new kitchen can be a great way to give your home a serious spring spruce-up, and make it healthier, too.

But if you or someone in your family has allergies and asthma, there are important steps you need to take.

The Demolition

It’s great to get older (and likely more toxic) materials out of your kitchen – but it’s crucial that you do it carefully.

The first step is to mitigate the demolition dust, which can contain chemicals, molds and other irritants, says Eric Corey Freed, principal with San Francisco’s organicARCHITECT and author of Green Building & Remodeling for Dummies. In order to keep dust from spreading, tightly seal off the area with plastic sheeting. It’s also worth picking up some hairnet-like covers for your air ducts to keep the dust from being recirculated.

Everyone working in the area also needs to wear protective goggles and a ventilating mask. “Guys tend to say, ‘I don’t need that, it’s just a little dust.’ But it adds up,” says Freed. “And it’s not just the heavy dust that you can see – it’s all the fine particulate that you can’t see that you inhale.” (Freed also stresses that if you suspect there is asbestos or lead paint, you need to bring in the pros to do the demo work.)

Mold can also present a serious problem because moisture often gathers behind sink cabinets, creating the perfect place for mold to breed and set off allergy symptoms during and after a renovation.

“Many owners see mold, spray bleach on it and think it’s fixed,” says Freed. Not so: the affected area must be completely dried out – or the drywall replaced – to ensure it doesn’t grow back. Once the demolition is complete, wet-mop to capture remaining dirt and dust, then flush the space with fresh air before that new kitchen rolls in.

Next Page: Choosing the right cabinets plus ‘cured’ counters that don’t off-gas.

There’s a lot of work in keeping an allergy-friendly home: regular dusting and vacuuming, cleaning with hypoallergenic products and ensuring low humidity levels to keep moulds away. This regimen is likely to keep indoor allergies in check, unless you have wall-to-wall broadloom. Carpets are heaven for allergy-inducing dust mites, since pile traps skin particles, the mites’ main source of nourishment.

If you’re looking to replace your dust mite settlement with a hypoallergenic floor, there are a number of good options. And esthetic appeal can still be your first consideration, according to Mark Bisbee of GreenFloors, a Virginia-based flooring company that specializes in healthy floors. “Just because it’s good for you, doesn’t mean it has to be ugly.”

Allergic Living sweeps through the following choices for a beautiful, allergy-free floor.

Bamboo

The green alternative to hardwood, bamboo is growing in popularity and dropping in price. Like hardwood, bamboo comes naturally light or dark (and can be stained) and is just as easy to keep clean. Bamboo, though, is actually a member of the grass family. It only takes three years to mature – most hardwood takes between 50 and 100 years – and it flourishes with few pesticides, so the impact of harvesting it is minimal.

Bamboo is kiln-dried and turned into a variety of floor products, from unfinished tongue-and-groove strips that are installed the old-fashioned way, with a hammer and nails, to floating floors that can be glued into place. Bamboo is durable, too, lasting between 30 and 50 years, and can be refinished. However, like any wood product, it’s not suited to a moisture-prone area of the home.

Be careful when choosing your bamboo since some brands are made using formaldehyde (known to irritate the airways), while other brands may emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Check also that an installer is using an adhesive that will not give off fumes. Be sure to ask a supplier for an emission-free bamboo: it is available and beautiful.

Cork

This is another great and green alternative. Bark from the cork oak tree is harvested carefully in its natural habitat, the Mediterranean, (Portugal is a major exporter) without doing any damage to the trees themselves – some of which are centuries old. The bark is then fashioned into tiles that are moisture resistant, making it a good choice, even in the kitchen.

Cork flooring products include glue-down tiles and floating-floor systems in which the cork is pre-glued to a core of particle board. Pieces snap together to make a floor. Wicanders is one brand that ensures the particle board in their floating floor is virtually formaldehyde free (less than 1 per cent).

Cork comes in a variety of colors and patterns. While it may feel soft underfoot, it is long-lasting as well as visually appealing.

Natural Linoleum

Just the word ‘linoleum’ may conjure up images of the vinyl flooring popular in 1950s kitchens. Today, the word has been reclaimed and is used to describe floors created from organic materials that are stylish and allergy-friendly.

Natural linoleum, also known by the brand name Marmoleum, is made from wood flour and bound together with flax and linseed oils to produce an anti-microbial barrier. “You can actually eat it – it’s 100 per cent biodegradable,” Bisbee says. Marmoleum comes in an incredible range of patterns and colors, from bright red to mahogany brown. It is durable, lasting about 30 years.

Next: Tiles and Stairs

People with environmental sensitivities, allergies and asthma are often taught to shun basements as dark, dank places laden with triggers such as mold and chemical fumes. And that stereotype can hold true. But the basement also presents much needed extra space. So let’s show you how to make your downstairs a safe, comfortable and breathable area.

Damp Downstairs

In school, we learn that hot air rises, and cold air falls. This means that in warmer weather, hot moist air leaks into your house and cools as it falls into the basement. As the hot air cools, the relative humidity is increasing as temperature drops, causing the damp feeling in the basement.

In fact, the air can reach the dew point – the temperature at which water falls out of it. When you add furnishings such as carpets and old upholstered furniture, which can absorb and hold the water vapor, this creates a musty, and potentially moldy basement.

As air moves through cracks in the basement walls, windows and elsewhere, it also brings with it dust, pollens and molds found outside. These end up in the basement as well. Add a few kids, pets and some glues and paints from hobbies and the workshop, and you’ve got the ingredients for an unhealthy space.

What To Do: Outside

To allergen-proof inside, start by minimizing what gets in. Grading is a major component of keeping your basement dry and refers to the slope of the land around the house. You want a “positive” slope or grade – which means the water runs away from the house.

With a “negative” slope, water pools and seeps into the ground, adding hydrostatic pressure to the foundation walls. Excessive water pressure will ultimately lead a wall system to fail and allow water to enter the basement. I recommend that you walk around your house during a heavy rain to assess how the water is moving around the building.

• Grading work does not have to be dramatic, but it must have a positive slope away from the building on all sides. How you can do this:
– Using a shovel and a wheelbarrow, create simple slopes in the areas of concern.
– Specifically, build up the soil closest to the house (keep it off siding, though), and dig down the soil that’s farther away from the building. Your slope must lose incline as you move away from the foundation. You can add grass seed to control erosion.

• The downspouts on your home are also extremely important as they release a large volume of water near the base of your home. It is imperative that downspouts direct water far away from the foundation. They should extend four to six feet from the building.

• Also consider the window wells. They keep snow off windows and ledges and reduce the risk of high water against a window, the weakest point in the basement walls. Wells should be at least six inches deeper than the bottom of the windowsill. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. recommends that you then dig down a further six to eight inches and fill with gravel to aid in drainage. (I often take the gravel even deeper.)

• Waterproofing: The only way to ensure your basement is completely dry, however, is to dig out the foundation from the outside, and add a waterproofing barrier of some kind. That entails hiring a waterproofing company and can be expensive. Be sure to check references if dealing with a larger job, and call utility companies before they dig.

Next Page: What to Do Inside

You can’t see them, but they’re all over your home. Dust mites will be in the carpet, the sofa, the bedding, the curtains, even a child’s stuffed animals. These tiny insects, visible only under a microscope, leave a trail of waste that is a highly allergenic.

It’s estimated that between 10 and 25 per cent of North Americans are sensitized to dust mite droppings, and that these pests will spark wheezing in over 50 per cent of asthmatics. Thankfully, while you can’t get rid of dust mites completely, you can minimize their multiplying numbers.

What They Are

Dust mites, cousins to the spider, are tiny, eight-legged arachnids measuring only one-quarter to one-third of a millimetre in size. They spend their two to four months of life eating, creating waste and reproducing. A female will lay 100 eggs in her lifetime, and each mite produces about 10 to 20 waste pellets a day.

They are whitish in color, and thrive in warmth (between 24 and 26 degrees C; 75 and 80 degrees F) and humidity higher than 50 per cent. Mites eat minuscule flakes of human skin and animal dander. They can’t drink, but absorb moisture from the atmosphere.

Where They Live

Dust mites prefer a plentiful supply of skin flakes or animal dander, moisture and warmth. This is why you’ll find the highest concentration of mites in your bed. An average mattress contains between 100,000 and 10 million bugs.

A study in 2000 found that more than 45 per cent of American homes had detectable dust mite levels associated with the development of allergies, and 23 per cent had bedding with concentrations of allergen high enough to trigger asthma attacks.

Next Page: What You Can Do

These are all tell-tale signs of household molds – fungi that thrive in a humid environment.

This microscopic fungus is not something you want to be living with. It produces allergens, irritants and, sometimes, mycotoxins (a toxic substance that you can inhale).

When it reproduces, mold releases spores that can trigger hay fever reactions and asthma attacks in the mold-allergic. Even those who aren’t allergic can find themselves rubbing their eyes, nursing a skin rash or suffering from a sore throat.

If mold is growing in your house, it’s time to identify the problem and eliminate it.

Spotting It

To determine whether you’ve got mold, there are clues to look for, says Frank Haverkate, an indoor environmental consultant and president of Haverkate and Associates Inc., a Toronto-based environmental testing and consulting company that does mold inspections.

Mold needs moisture to grow, so any source of water that is not contained – such as condensation on your walls or leaky pipes – combined with a lack of airflow, can create perfect conditions for the fungi.

Haverkate suggests looking for peeling and cracking paint, flaking and powdery plaster, and crystalline white formations on the basement foundation that indicate minerals are passing through the stone.

Mold can be furry, powdery, slimy and come in a variety of colours, from black to green to white. In fact, says Haverkate, despite rumours that black mold is the worst for your health, all molds can cause problems. You can’t judge toxicity by the colour.

Companies such as Haverkate’s specialize in mold inspection. For $1,000 to $1,500, he will come to your house with instruments including moisture meters and thermal imaging cameras to suss out the problem and also do lab analyses of air samples.

The firm is one of the few in Canada to use a mold-sniffing dog to help identify hard-to-see cases. (Mold Dogs Inc. in Alberta and MoldDOG Canada in Port Coquitlam, B.C. employ dogs on the job as well.)

The Cleanup

The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. suggests only small areas (no more than three patches of mold, each smaller than one square metre) should be tackled by an untrained individual.

If that’s your situation, protect yourself by purchasing an N-95 respirator that fits properly so you don’t inhale any spores. Wear gloves that come up your forearm as well as goggles without ventilation holes. Using detergent and water, scrub off the mold.

(Do not use bleach as it can react with surface materials and produce toxic gases.) Dry the area completely and make sure it stays arid.

For more serious mold infestations, you’ll need to call in a specialized mold removal contractor, with credentials from the Institution of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC) and the Indoor Air Quality Association (IAQA).

Such contractors will set up a tent-like structure around the mold, which they pressurize before safely removing the fungi, so that isn’t spread around. Haverkate advises that mold inspectors who also do the removal have an inherent conflict of interest.

How To Avoid

There are simple steps to minimize your exposure to mold. Fix any leaks immediately; keep your eavestroughs clear of leaves, so that they drain properly; turn a fan on in the bathroom for 10 minutes after every shower or bath; make sure appliances, such as dryers, are vented properly; and cover cold surfaces, including cold water pipes, with insulation so that condensation doesn’t accumulate.

If you do have a flood or a leak, clean it up quickly. Chances are that if you remove the moisture within 24 to 48 hours, you will stop mold spores from setting up camp. While Haverkate stresses that a mold-free environment does not exist, an infestation in your home is unhealthy and should be eradicated.

Websites of Interest

CMHC page
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention page

A study recently published in the American Journal of Pediatrics, shows that chemicals that we are typically exposed to on a day-to-day basis and the average increase in Body Mass Index (BMI) in young girls is sending them into early puberty. The study, published in August 2010, shows that girls as young as 7 years old are developing breast tissue.

Dr. Frank Biro, the lead researcher in the study, explains that reaching puberty too early is cause for concern, both for the child’s psychological health (receiving unwanted attention from the opposite sex) and physical health. The study was conducted through the Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Centers and established that girls who reach puberty at an earlier age than average are at an increased risk of developing breast cancer later in life.

Preventing exposure to certain chemicals, also known as endocrine disruptors, is key. The chemicals, such as phthalates, are commonly found in cosmetics, personal care products, processed foods and even in some plastic toys.

Since these chemicals mimic hormones that we produce on our own, over-exposure to them may trigger the beginning of puberty before nature means it to happen.

Living green is the simple solution, explains Dr. Biro. Avoiding these chemicals (as much as possible), eating a balanced diet, and getting plenty of exercise can help young girls reach puberty at the typical age.

Living green is a way of life that makes sense for people with asthma and allergies, and here we can see the direct positive consequences as well for young girls as they mature.

Sources:
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Cente
EPA

Inside, mold thrives in humid areas like the shower or the basement. Outside, you’ll find it growing in shady areas where there is dampness or where vegetation is decomposing.

Mold reproduces by sending out tiny spores that float through the air, looking for a friendly environment to make a home. These spores are resilient and can survive in even the driest conditions.

When the spores do find dampness, mold is extremely fast-growing, and so plentiful that we don’t even know how many species there are.

Estimates suggest there are between 10,000 and 300,000 different kinds. And not all are bad for humans. We use mold in food production to make cheese and soy sauce. But unless you’re making your own Danish blue, you will want to banish mold from your home.

See Also:

• Find and destroy mold in the home.

Autos

Let’s start with your vehicle. If you’re driving an SUV, it burns one-half to two-thirds more fuel than a regular car. As for cars, newer models can vary con­siderably on environmental and energy efficiency, so compare both fuel effi­ciency and emission controls before buying or leasing.

Technology can only help so much, though. We need to reduce the number of vehicles and the time they spend on the road. One way is to hike the price of gas. As the David Suzuki Foundation points out, in Europe, fuel costs two to three times more than it does here, and European consumption is one-third less.

This is also an urban planning issue, since the growth of suburbs has extend­ed commuting times. So we need to halt sprawl and encourage people to live downtown or close to where they work. This means greater density, with more condo high-rises along subway and bus routes. To get people out of cars, you also need better public transit, as well as more bike lanes. Businesses need to be encouraged to provide secure bicycle racks, plus showering areas.

But in the shorter term, what can you do this summer?

- Carpool, use public transportation, walk or bike (if it’s not a smoggy day). One car commuter uses as much energy as a transit rider uses in 10 years. Viewed another way, if you take public transit instead of a vehicle for a year, you can save nearly a tonne of pollutants, including carbon dioxide.

- Avoid idling. Ontario stats show 3 per cent of fuel is wasted by idling.

- Tune up your car. If we all did it on a regular basis, we could reduce Nitrogen oxides by 12 per cent and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), a key part of smog, by 30 per cent.

- Keep tires properly inflated. Each 5 per cent of under inflation in a tire translates into a 1 per cent increase in fuel consumption.

- Fill your gas tank in the evening, as this a major source of VOCs. If they combine with other gases in the sun, they create smog.

- Consider fuel efficiency when you buy a car. See www.fueleconomy.gov to check gas consumption and emissions.

- Buy a hybrid. Enjoy the sound of silence as you push the button that starts the electric-powered motor. You might qualify for Ottawa’s new rebate for hybrids – up to $2,000. They’re expensive, but what’s the price for breathable air?

- Retire the energy-guzzling clunker. A program called Car Heaven offers a free car tow and eco-friendly recycling.

Next Page: At Home

Kantelberg has made a name for herself as a designer of chic condominium interiors. She works for high-end developers in downtown Toronto, designing elegant lobbies and inspiring model suites, as well as coming up with the finishes that buyers will choose from for cabinets and flooring. Now she’s using her success to spread the word about healthy design, attempting to make environmental consciousness part of everyone’s furnishing equation.

Kantelberg incorporates the principles of green design into every project, so the spaces she creates can be healthy, beautiful places to live for those with – and without – asthma and environmental sensitivities. “It’s important for me to make sure people are buying a suite without chemicals,” she says. Without any compromise on the style front, of course.

Kantelberg didn’t set out with a grand plan to become Canada’s ultimate eco-interior designer. Arriving there has been, one might say, an organic process. She’s the daughter of two eco-minded parents who taught her to be cognizant of her impact on Mother Earth.

Ever since she was a child, Kantelberg has also suffered with environmental sensitivities – severe enough that her mother used to bring along sheets for her daughter wherever they travelled. Today, she still can’t wear synthetic fabrics and becomes unwell in an air-conditioned environment. She can get sick even staying one night in a hotel with poor air quality. “It has helped me as a designer because I am aware of how these things affect people.”

Kantelberg enrolled in design school at 27, graduating in 1994, and opening her own studio specializing in luxury interiors by 1997. Nine years later, Tridel asked her to design what it dubbed its “Eco Suite,” an educational condominium the company was creating to demonstrate sustainable living.

Intrigued, Kantelberg went all-out to create the ultimate green space. She brought in recycled drywall and non-toxic, water-based stains and glues. She made sure linens were organic, paints emitted the least amount of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) possible and fixtures conserved energy and water.

In older condo buildings, air is circulated among the units (so if your neighbour down the hall smokes, you’ll end up breathing it). To avoid this, Kantelberg had an Energy Recovery Ventilation (ERV) system installed to filter the Eco Suite’s air. The project awakened her inner environmentalist. In every job since, she has incorporated elements of green design.

View the full article: Non-Toxic Painting