The inside of my house was painted with VOCs and fungicides.
GBA Editor
| Posted in Green Building Techniques on
I need to seal in the fungicides and VOCs. Which products are best for sealers and which paint is best to repaint? I have chemical allergies, so need to use products suited for mcs condition. Due to my chemical allergies everything needs to be benign. Could use a consultant or builder who works with green and safe products and methods.
GBA Detail Library
A collection of one thousand construction details organized by climate and house part
Search and download construction details
Replies
The best sealers are shellacs, but they are alcohol-based and will require that you evacuate the home and ventilate until fumes are gone. I use BIN white-pigmented shellac primer/sealer to seal stains, grease, crayon, char and resins. It dries to the touch in 20 minutes.
It contains ethyl alcohol, isopropyl alcohol, kaolin, magnesium aluminum silicate, talc & titanium dioxide. I will effectively seal virtually anything and then you can apply hypo-allergenic paint or other finish over it.
I have worked with clients with multiple chemical sensitivities. A great resource is Andy Pace of Safe Building Solutions (800-697-5371. Their website is:
http://www.safebuildingsolutions.com/web_contractors016/web/AFMPRODUCTS.html
He offers a line of paints from Safecoat which I have used with success:
http://www.afmsafecoat.com/
Andy is located near Waukesha Wisconsin, but I believe he works with, and can provide products to, clients who are out of state.
Thanks for thinking of me Derek. Elena and I have discussed this and we have decided on the correct procedure to fix this.
Robert - While I agree that shellac has its merits, the use of it in this situation would be counter-productive. The BIN product most likely contains fungicides itself. 99.9% of all paints and coatings contain some sort of fungicide. Since the fungicides make up less than 1% of the volume of the paint, they do not have to be listed on an MSD sheet. Unless you have an official list of ingredients from the manufacturer, I have to assume, for the sake of my clients, that fungicides are used. AFM Safecoat does not use fungicides, due to the fact that their main customer base are those with chemical sensitivity.
Please visit my new website @ http://www.thegreendesigncenter.com and locate our Knowledge Base to ask questions or search our database. Thank you!
Andrew Pace