Documenting a personal quest for non-toxic housing.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005How To Survive Without A Salary
The unfortunately named How To Survive Without A Salary
by Charles Long is a book that should be required reading in every school on the planet Earth, and at the very least required reading for every disabled person who must cope with the limitations of a fixed income. I say 'unfortunately named' because this title implies to many people that it is just another of the innumerable get-rich-quick scam books flooding the market today. Nothing could be further from the truth, however, as this book is really about how to avoid the negative effects of the biggest scam there is; the contemporary consumer culture. How To Survive Without A Salary is a guide to a frugal and efficient way of living that seeks to make the most of every dollar and every minute and a reality check on the way consumerism exploits our ignorance, laziness, and compulsive nature. While the lifestyle it describes is definitely not practical for all, the insight, tips, and advice it offers is of very practical use to just about everyone. This author has lost copies of this book lending them to acquaintances. People who borrow it often find it too useful to return...
The New Natural House Book and The Natural House Catalog
Both of these books are by David Pearson and I include them together as they deserve to be treated as a set. The New Natural House Book
is essentially an overview of the issue of housing health and common means of abatement and non-toxic home design. It does not get into much technical detail, focusing instead on a discussion of healthy materials and extensively photographed examples of housing. The book goes far to create a visual impression suggesting the true squalor in the non-healthy homes common to American suburbs. Many of the homes featured here were also featured in the Sydney and Joan Baggs book The Healthy House.
The Natural House Catalog
The Healthy House
One of the first books this author found specific to the subject of non-toxic housing The Healthy House
remains an excellent introduction to the subject. Written by Australians Sydney and Joan Baggs, The Healthy House is a light overview of a broad selection of building techniques and materials mixing both a technical or clinical notion of house healthfulness or 'baubiologie' with a more aesthetic or 'spiritual' sensibility more typical of organic designers as well as the usual strong doze of eco-sensibility common to texts on sustainable architecture. The book is also interesting in that it features a number of eco-village projects -though alas some of these have already become defunct before being built. Altogether, a good introduction to the subject of low toxic architecture, though with few examples from the US.
Prescriptions for a Healthy House
Written by New Mexico architect Paula Baker-Laporte, Prescriptions for a Healthy House
is an in-depth guide to non-toxic home construction, materials, and products intended to meet the needs of both prospectic home buyers and the people involved in building them. The book is very useful as a sourcebook for techniques and products. There are a number of interesting products that I have not seen noted elsewhere, such as the enzyme based earth treatments used as a non-toxic alternative to asphalt for driveway construction. Baker-Laporte favors the use of pumicecrete construction for non-toxic housing as well as it's logical pueblo style of design. She has frequently used this material and it features in homes she's designed for The Commons cohousing community in Santa Fe. However, she also employs a contemporary version of wattle and daub construction for a line of homes she calls EcoNests which are not noted in this book.
Altogether a very useful sourcebook and guide to the issues and subject of healthy housing but without very specific information on building techique.
Healthy House Building for the New Millennium
One of the more recent healthy architecture books this author has read, Healthy House Building for the New Millennium
by John Bower details the full construction process for a model non-toxic home based on a unique approach. Bower Advocates the use of a method called ADA or Airtight Drywall Approach along with a super-insulated double-wall system which allows fairly conventional building materials to be employed for non-toxic housing including that specific to the needs of people with environmental sensitivity. The model Healthy House featured in the book is built using light gauge steel framing fiberglass batt insulation, and conventional drywall products. Using careful drywall finishing techniques, an airtight enclosure is created. This would normally present a number of potential problems for indoor air quality but these have been overcome by virtue of the ADA approach which locks out the latent contaminants in the wall materials and by careful choice of low-toxic interior finishing products and furnishings.The approach is similar to the abatement techniques some healthy home contractors have employed to make existing homes more tolerable for MCS patients. My only concern with it is that Bower presumes a much higher degree of skill and care than is probably typical of the average building contractor. While the model Healthy House is cost-effective, extremely energy efficient, and has apparently worked well for sensitive individuals, it seems unlikely that the majority of contractors would be able to duplicate the skill and diligence Bower himself has demonstrated. So duplication of this home design seems challenging.
Bower's other texts on the healthy housing subject, offered through the Healthy Housing Institute and via Amazon.com, look very promising and I hope to review them in the future.