While Charles discussed a wide range of designs and considerations, he highlighted indoor air quality as a very important design consideration for everyone. This is especially true as you age because you can become even more sensitive to poor air quality.
VOCs
There are many considerations when it comes to indoor air quality, and one is VOCs, which are present in all of our homes and potentially hazardous to our health.
VOC stands for Volatile Organic Compound. Many products used in home construction have these chemicals that are released into the air post-installation, called off-gassing. You might be surprised to know that VOCs are in every house and can be found in many common products including paints, lacquers, paint strippers, cleaning supplies, pesticides, building materials, printers, correction fluid, and glues. This is something to be taken seriously. VOCs can trigger asthma, eye irritation, cough, dizziness, and other adverse long-term health effects, and they are known to cause certain cancers.
Envelopes and Energy-Efficiency
Concentrations of VOCs are often found to be higher indoors than outdoors (an obvious conclusion looking at air circulation and volume of space). To compound the problem, the level of these chemicals could even be higher in an ‘energy-efficient’ home that does not have a dedicated fresh air system.
This is because the more air-tight a building envelope is, the more likely it is energy-efficient. (A building envelope refers to the walls and other materials separating the indoor air from the outdoor air). Creating an airtight home reduces energy leaks at all the gaps and cracks in your home’s walls (around windows and doors, where materials meet, plumbing penetrations, and more). This traps the air inside the home and doesn’t allow in outdoor air. While this prevents energy loss (or gain depending on the season) it also prevents the house from “airing out.” Air pressure around the home and in the home also plays a part in that, but that is for another blog on another day.
What should you do?
So what should you do if you want to save money with an energy-efficient home and you want to decrease VOCs and their harmful effects? Is this a catch-22? As scary as this may sound, it is not all doom and gloom, and there are ways to mitigate the amount of VOCs you will come into contact with in your home.
In the construction stage, carefully select products. VOCs can be found in many products including paints, lacquers, paint strippers, cleaning supplies, pesticides, building materials, and glues. We typically select products that have low to No VOCs in them for our clients when possible.
Include a dedicated fresh air system integrated with the heating and cooling system. This will draw in conditioned and filtered air into your home rather than relying on leaks in your home for “fresh” air.
Open your windows occasionally (if your allergies are not too triggered by the pollen levels).
Until products are no longer made with VOCs, these strategies will not eliminate 100% of VOCs, but they will diminish a known health risk to your family.
We get to design a lot of cool spaces for our clients and kitchen design may be one of my favorites. As a former cook at The Virginian restaurant I learned the value of an efficient kitchen with all the right tools. It is so much easier to make delicious food if you have a kitchen that is easy to cook in that does not tire you out walking too much and has the right amount of counter space to prep and serve. We have designed a lot of different kitchens over the years and I went looking for photos this morning of some of my favorites. Some are renovations and some are all new spaces, but all have a special quality to them.
They all are highly functional spaces as well as aesthetically beautiful.
Some are all new spaces.
They all are special to the home design and to us.
So yes, we design kitchens too, as well as additions, renovation, new construction……
Fall weather and the smell of pumpkin spice have us thinking about insulation and air sealing. We know the cold weather will soon be setting in and now is the time to ensure energy efficiency in your home and prepare for the colder temperatures ahead. No one wants to suffer through an uncomfortable home nor be wasteful, especially as energy prices continue to increase. Below you will find some ideas of how to achieve a more energy-efficient, comfortable home.
Identify air leaks and protect your home for the colder temperatures.
Caulk can be your best friend when it comes to air sealing, but which one should you use? Read up on the blog here.
Find the air leaks by scheduling a free energy audit, which we can do for you! Learn more here.
Did you know that your attic door needs to be insulated? Learn why here.
While you are checking out your attic door, take a look at the insulation while you are there. Learn more here.
Is your heating system working properly? Here are some resources to help you out.
Conserving energy is key, see the impact (below) on the roof of our design project here.
Notice the difference between the two roofs? Energy efficiency is visible on roofs after a snowfall.
We want to see more families saving energy and money. Feel free to give us a call or reach out with any questions regarding the comfort of your home.
It is no surprise that amidst a pandemic people are spending much more time in their homes. Overall human beings spend a significant amount of time indoors, meaning the air we breathe is a lot less healthy and could affect our overall well-being later in life. This reason alone is enough to stress the importance of hiring a designer who understands building science- it can make the difference between a healthy home or one that has the potential to make you and your family sick.
There are certain factors that can impact the air we breathe, one of those being a fireplace. This element leaves an opening in your home that can pull dirty air into the home from the fireplace itself or the building envelope. According to the United States, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) microparticles in wood-burning fireplaces can cause bronchitis, asthma, and other respiratory issues in children and the elderly. A safe alternative for this would be using a vented gas fireplace, this eliminates the need for wood and other natural materials along with pushing out the harmful exhaust. Speaking with your architect about a ventilated fireplace in the home design process can make all the difference in the air you will breathe every day.
The most important cost-effective construction solution used to lower energy bills is a reduction of air-leakage. The test used to determine air tightness in a home is required in the 2009 International Residential Code, it is called a blower door test. However, there is a second compliance method, the visual inspection, that most builders in Virginia use to show compliance.
Building code specifies that “the building thermal envelope shall be durably sealed to limit infiltration.” Unfortunately the visual inspection provision weakens this requirement to a point that it makes no impact on most homes being constructed. The blower door is the only effective way to determine total air leakage and verify the home is as air tight as required by the building code (the worst possible construction allowed by law).
A blower door test is used to determine total air leakage of a home’s thermal envelope. The powerful fan is installed in an exterior door and the house is depressurized. The result is a measure of the home’s air tightness. This test simulates the air leakage typical in a building that uses forced air heating and cooling as well as those that result from weather conditions. Every home should have a blower door test in order to find the leaks and reduce the money wasted each month on an inefficient thermal envelope.
Permeability is a HUGE topic in our mixed humid climate for anyone involved in the construction industry. The perm rating of a product is the measure of the diffusion of water vapor through a material. This vapor drive through a building material can make or break the durability, efficiency, and indoor air quality of a project.
In our climate, the key is to have a wall and roof assembly that is air tight and vapor permeable. This is an almost impossible task so there are other things that need to be done for the house to be as efficient and durable as possible – but I will not go into that depth with this post.
Vapor permeability (air tight and vapor permeable) is sometimes referred to as the breath-ability of a system or ability to let water vapor pass. This should not be confused with stopping bulk moisture, which is a must for a wall and roof assembly. Bulk water is moisture in liquid form and water vapor is a gas.
So why is vapor permeability so important to the health, efficiency and durability of a building system? Because walls and roofs do get wet. Condensation will occur in some systems. Plumbing leaks do happen on occasion. Most important, we have two seasons here in Virginia and therefore have two different vapor drive directions. So walls and roofs need to be able to dry in both directions. When a wall cannot dry out, it becomes susceptible to moisture damage (rot, mold, insects).
Anything with a perm rating of less than 1 is a semi-vapor barrier. These products should be used sparingly for the thermal envelope in our climate. Anything less than 10 has low permeability and care needs to be taken to dry the assemblies out and not trap vapor inside.
Many products we use traditionally need extra thought due to their permeability:
Open Cell Foam = 15 Perms
Closed Cell Foam = 1 Perms
Concrete = 3.2 Perms
Gypsum wall board = 50 Perms
Plywood Sheathing = 10 Perms
OSB Sheathing = 2 Perms
Oil Paint = 1.6 Perms
15# Felt = 8 Perms
Kraft paper batts = 1 Perms
House wrap = range 5 to 50 Perms
Having an architect that understands building science is a must in our mixed humid climate. A well planned wall and roof assembly will be healthy, durable, and energy-efficient.
