March Mailbag Madness

Spring is upon us. The birds are chirping. The snow is melting and the mailbox is full of mail. Today we're tackling some of those questions from the mailbox here on Non-Toxic Environments.

And welcome back to Non-Toxic Environments everybody. This is Andy Pays. Jay, how are you doing this week? Doing great, Andy.

Good to be on the show again. And I guess we've got a mailbox full of mail. The mailbox is actually stuffed full. We're getting bags of mail too.

It's overflowing. It's overflowing. And I love it. Yeah, we do.

We want people to pick our brains every week. Well, and that's the way things are moving right now, Jay. We've got a number of interviews lined up now for upcoming episodes. But we still have a number of people on a daily basis, emailing questions and sending speak-pipe questions to us.

And I think it's going to be good for us every once in a while to do one of these episodes where we do nothing but answer questions. Today's the day. Let's do it. Today is the day.

Let me start with this one. This is in your wheelhouse here. Hello. Thank you so much for the podcast.

Do you guys have any recommendations for a non-toxic product for refinishing solid wood furniture? We have a dining room table out of an old fashioned made from old fashioned farmhouse wood and also a piano that needs to be redone. Neither one has any shining sort of finish on it right now. And I would like to sand them lightly and keep the mat appearance.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions. Now, before you answer that, I will say I've got two other questions that are almost identical to that. So a lot of people talking about painting or refinishing furniture. So what do you think about that?

Well, you know, as in any query on an installation, it's and they've been a pretty good job here of explaining what they're trying to accomplish. I think that's important. So one of the things I'm wondering about, they didn't mention it, but you know, I was wondering what species of wood we're working with. At this point, that probably not that material.

But only reason I want to think about that is because I want to understand porosity. You know, you're working with a really hard wood, isn't it a soft wood? What can they expect with those different species and how, you know, the coating is going to respond once they hit the surface. So as you know, Andy, maybe our followers know as well, my company AFM makes a couple finishes.

One in particular that we really developed for this type of job and that's the product we make called Acrolac. That's the safe coat replacement for high solvent based lacquers. Lacquers are what are still used today, but have been the darlings of finishers for many, many decades. And so Acrolac is the one we would recommend.

Part of the challenge with water-based products like ours is working on wood. Wood is a very absorbent surface. And so when you put water on wood, you'll get a swelling of the grain, a grain raising. And so when you're working with water-based products, generally you're applying multiple coats, you're doing kind of a build up of thin coats of the sealer.

What's called film formers, that means they basically form a film on the surface. And this would be different than a penetrating type finish. And we actually have one of those and I can discuss that as well. But with the water-based, so your first coat acts as a kind of a grain raiser.

And generally what you have to do after you've applied that, it's dry enough to sand. You're going to dewit, it's called dewiskering. It's like little whiskers that pop up, they're wood fibers. You're going to dewisker those and smooth those out.

And then the surface is then partly sealed. And so when your second coat or even your third coat goes down on top, you're getting less of that grain raising. In fact, by the end you shouldn't have any of it. And then what you're going to do is really like a mirror finish across the surface area, which is what people are looking for.

The finishes that are available there are gloss and matte. So they didn't mention staining of the wood. But our theory on the best clarity when you're using these finishes is to start with the gloss finish, the clear gloss. This allows to maintain the grain color figure.

And if you had stained the wood and it was dark, this helps with the clarity of that surface. And then if you prefer the matte or the lower sheen on top, then you use the matte as your very last coat in the whole sandwiching effect here. And that gives you the best of both worlds. Real quickly, the other product that I'm thinking of is, and this is a different philosophy in terms of the way the product works, but it's the product called Natural's Oil Wax Finish, which is different as oils are penetrators.

They basically soak into the wood. And the way they work is they actually hardened those fibers in the wood. It's not really a film former like the other one I mentioned, Acroac. So the oil wax finish then is applied on a wet on wet.

You put a coat on, let it penetrates, put another coat on, and within half an hour you let that penetrate. And then you wipe that surface dry so there's no standing oil in the surface. And then you just let that sit. It'll harden up the wood fibers.

It gives you a different look. It's a lower sheen, matte kind of a matte finish. And the nice features, there's wax in there, a little bit of a carne, a little wax. You can actually buff it after it's fully cured.

I give it two, three weeks before I start thinking about buffing it. One of the nice things about oil that is different from the water bases, the oils tend to enhance the color of the wood a lot more dramatically than the water bases do. So I always suggest that people if they're not certain which way they want to go, a couple things you do, you get samples which of course we have a sample program and you can get two ounce bottles of samples. And I would suggest if you're considering any brand, any brand of product, you try to get samples for a project like this so you can look at it before you jump in and do the whole thing.

How would you look at it? Well if it's a table you flip it upside down, you do the bottom of the table. The piano finish, that's a little tougher. Sounds tough.

I'm guessing Andy tell me if you're thinking the same thing. It's an upright. So for the piano, let's just say it's an upright. With a piano typically it is a high gloss finish and for that, you know, definitely the acrylac.

Even the poly BP, the polyurel Bp, I have a lot of wood finishers that actually prefer the polyurethane when doing a high gloss finish. And I think of, you know, your friend Gary, the guitar maker, he uses poly BP and he uses what, eight, nine, ten coats of it? Yeah and he's buffing with like 2000 grit sandpaper. Yeah, and it's absolutely gorgeous when it's done.

So I'm thinking of that would probably your best about there. You know, and we're in stepping back to your, the first part of that question with the farm table. I really like your approach with the oil wax finish. I think that an old-fashioned farmhouse table made from old barn wood.

I just think it lends itself to that product real well. That old-fashioned look, you know, the oil wax, you know, you can buff it a little bit to give it a little bit of glow and you can even put a maintenance coating of just pure beeswax over it. Right. And use that as a buffing compound.

It works really well. Yeah, I've done it. It does. I've done it.

And so it's a little, you know, you think about it. Maybe there's a little more, a maintenance awareness you have to be when you're using a system like that. But the look, I think for the piece that it is, a farmhouse piece, as you described it, that creates a real vivid image in my mind of what that would really look good with something on it. I think the oil, I think the oil, between the two, I agree with you.

I think the oil is the first choice. And I like the fact that if this is a table that is going to be used a lot, I like the fact that a person can revitalize the surface really easily. Yeah. You know, it's a matter of just, you know, buffing in or sanding in a little bit of fresh oil and wiping off the excess, letting it dry and you're done.

Right. Whereas the Acrylac or PolybP or any other water-based or oil-based surface coating, you can't just fix a small area. You have to refinish the entire surface. Right.

So excellent. That's really good information. I'll just point this out too, that there is also a tintedable or tinted or a tintable version of Acrylac. It's called EcoLac.

And that comes in both a gloss and a matte finish. You can get any color you want in that product. And this would be for anybody who's looking for the painted look. And what I like about that, J, is that you don't have to topcoat it with a clear hard finish.

It's all built in. Yep. That's good. Excellent.

Hey, folks, it's Andy here. We'll get you back to the show right away. Just wanted to point out that a number of the products we're talking about on today's episode are found on the website, thegreendesigncenter.com. Those products, along with thousands of other materials are available for sale 24 hours a day.

As a loyal listener to non-toxic environments, if you use the coupon code non-toxic during checkout, all spelled out, N-O-N-T-O-X-I-C, you'll get 5% off of your order. So please take advantage of that. And that's Green Design Centers. Thank you for being a loyal listener to our podcast.

Now back to the show. Next question. This is a topic we've talked about in the past, a product called Calliwell. I had a customer email and say, I've been looking at using the Calliwell paint on the outside of a sloped wood ceiling.

So it's an outside porch, but on the inside the sloped wood ceiling. I get mauled there because the porch has a wood floor and dirt underneath. One wall is the exterior of the house. Three walls are a screen for a three season room.

At one wall, perpendicular to the house, I replaced the screens with the wood base and plexiglass windows to protect from wind and snow. Basically, they're getting mold on that ceiling because of the fact that it's covered. There's no sunlight, very little air movement, and you get all this mold spores from the dirt rising up. So the question was, can you use the Calliwell home and office paint on the ceiling of that?

And my answer is yes, you can do that. This is a situation where there's really no other way to fix this. You can't really cover up the dirt unless you take the wood floor up, pour a concrete slab to completely seal in that the earth. But you're still running into a situation where you don't get sunlight on the ceiling and you don't have a good air movement.

So mold spores will still be in those areas. So I like the idea of using the Calliwell home and office paint. It will kill off any mold that's on the surface and it'll keep it from coming back for at least five years. What's your take on the decontamination process before applying Calliwell?

Is there a primer in the part of the system? Or how does that work? All right, so the decontamination process is really as such. If it's a clean sound surface, you can go ahead and put paint directly on it.

A primer is not necessary in the situation. However, if mold has grown to the point where it's blooming, you want to remove as much as you can, either by sanding, scraping, or washing. And washing, I actually just use a solution of, you know, take a gallon of water, put in a cup of white vinegar, a couple tablespoons of borax, and mix it all together. And that becomes a really good scrubbing solution for mold prone areas.

Let it dry completely and then put on two coats of the home and office paint. Does I think folks, if you're going to be scraping things with mold on it, make sure you use a proper protective gear. Exactly. You're going to wear masks so you don't inhale any mold spores.

That is common sense, I think. It is, but it's great to point out. Good point, Jay. Yeah.

Okay, Calliwell, that's an amazing product. Amazing product. We're getting some fantastic traction with it. Really excited about the potential of that product we have.

I know people are going to ask, but what are you looking at dollar wise? You know, you get some sense. The Calliwell Park is about $70 a gallon. Okay.

And like I said earlier, it has a life span much longer than five years, but it's guaranteed to resist or prevent any mold growth for at least five years. That's great. I think that's really outstanding. When you think about the other alternatives and they're not as safe and they're not as effective.

So if you have to spend a little bit more money for that kind of performance, it's worth it. Absolutely worth it. Well, and not just the performance, but the fact that it does it using completely toxin free materials, it's a calcium hydroxide ground found line. Well, that's why we call ourselves an un-toxic environment.

Isn't it? You got it. You got it. Okay.

I've got one here for you. Okay, good. Yeah. So hello, I've been using AFM finishes for a while on toys.

However, I'm expanding and I need to know if I use the oil wax finish on wood, can it be further machined by a laser? I read the SDS including the decomposition section and it's I'd like to conform. If it's not okay, is there another product which would be made entirely from soybean oil, which is laserable? It's saying it'd be nice at a table where we could discuss what's laserable and or not.

This is a very unusual one. I don't think I've ever had somebody ask me, can we laser cut some wood that's got oil wax finish on it? I have never had this question before. Do you think he's worried about combustibility?

Like if the laser got really hot somehow, the wood would burst into flames? I think that's a possible thought. I think that as all oils can combust when they're liquid but when they're completely dry. I don't think this is going to be any more problematic than a soil oil product.

And I'll say this, the oil wax contains soil oil. And so I don't think this would be an issue. But as we say in all these odd situations, you want to test. I've never had this question before and one of the fun things about being in this business is that every day I get questions that I've never heard before.

And it certainly helps the next people that ask that question. But I think the use of any penetrating oil hardens the wood by about 15 to 20% when it fully cures. And so there's a possibility that when when then lasering the wood after it's been oiled, you know, you'll have to probably adjust the parameters of that laser to account for the higher density in the way that it's possible the laser light can refract going through a oiled surface. Yeah, there'd be some, you know, obviously, they're really clear what their worries or their concerns were.

I think getting an answer on that from them is going to be something that, you know, I can address that. I have another one. Okay. I'm a very chemically sensitive person and I got very ill and chronic the teag when I moved into a new condo.

Oh boy, we've heard this one before. New condo with cheap new paint and cheap new carpet. And now things have gotten worse. I need to move my bedroom into a 53 year old basement room with a dry cement floor.

How do you recommend I seal or seal or paint the floor? If sealed or painted, can I just throw rugs on it or will I need to put down linoleum or vinyl or wood? What do you recommend? Thank you very much.

Lisa. All right. Well, this question is is multifaceted, actually. And you know, right off the bat, I'm going to say that the 53 year old concrete floor in the basement is probably a safer environment than the new condo with the cheap paint that you could.

I would agree with you 100%. Now, different issues. Obviously, in a basement, we're worried about mold and moisture. 53 year old concrete will not have fly ash in the concrete mix.

So you don't worry about mercury. It's all going to come down to humidity and moisture vapor or vapor pressure that's coming up to the concrete. So a couple of things. First of all, go to a hardware store, get yourself a very inexpensive hydrometer to check the ambient humidity.

You want to keep the humidity, really, I mean, sweet spot is around 30%. Basement is a little tougher because you're in the earth and it's just inherently more moist. If you do have higher humidity, you need to run a dehumidifier. And then you also need to check if you have any vapor transmission coming up through that slab.

Now, there's a couple of ways to check it. The cheap and easy way is the black plastic bag test. For that, you're taking a black plastic garbage bag and you're taping it to the concrete floor. You'll tape it to the concrete floor for about three days and then peel it up and see if you have any moisture on the underside of the plastic or if it's on the, if you have a darkening of the concrete.

In those situations, that's telling us you have vapor pressure moving up to the slab. And that also gives us an indication of what will happen if you try to paint the floor. You know, you're trying to paint the floor. You are essentially painting over that vapor pressure and eventually that vapor pressure could build up enough to cause the paint to peel.

So now you'll have a bigger problem on your hands. So then we look at doing a flooring material. You mentioned a natural linoleum or something else like that. If the vapor pressure is not very great, if you have a little darkening, then you should still be able to put down a flooring material.

That flooring material will keep that vapor from transmitting through and you wouldn't have to necessarily worry too much about any of that vapor building up underneath and then becoming problematic unless you have, when you've done that black plastic bag test and it was really damp and moist underneath there, now we're talking a different situation where you have to do what's called a calcium chloride test and you have to measure how much vapor is coming up to this lab because if it's too much, then you really can't do anything. And then you really have to just live with what you have. You know, basements that were built 50 years ago were never really designed to have people living in them. They were designed to house mechanicals and storage.

They weren't designed to be having humans living in there. So they weren't prepared properly. And so that's really something to consider. You don't want to make things worse for you when you do have chemical sensitivity.

So do the do the plastic bag test, see if it's going to work for you, check the humidity, keep the humidity at a proper level, make sure you get good airflow and good air purification in that space. And I guess the last thing to point out is if there's a way to check to see if anybody has ever used pesticides, you know, mouse or rat poison, anything like that that could be still in the concrete, just to make sure for peace of mind, you know, you can clean those things up. But you know, just again, you don't want to have to worry about that. As long as you take those precautions, it should be an okay space to be.

Yeah. And I think, you know, obviously adding throw rugs to a hard concrete floor service is a good idea. You want to soften it up a little bit, give yourself some color. Provided those throw rugs are also safe.

Exactly. Yeah, that's the caveat. They don't want to bring in something that's not going to help you at all. It's going to be something safe.

And I'll say this. I think, you know, everything we've talked about, air purification is going to be really key in the space. And you know, I'm actually going to carry into the next question because it kind of relates to this. I had a local contractor here reach out and she said she needs a sealer for a wood shop concrete floor that's off their garage of this wood shop built in the back of the garage.

It has moisture coming up through it sometimes. We want to seal all the moisture out to protect all the tools from Rustin. What would you recommend? And it's not heated.

So I kind of had a conversation back and forth with her because the first thing I said was, well, if you've got moisture coming up to that slab, it's probably the fact that it doesn't have a proper vapor barrier underneath it. The way concrete slabs are done these days is you put a vapor barrier over the earth and then you put compacted gravel and so forth. Or you can do that in different ways. It kind of depends on the contractor and depends on the location where you're putting the vapor barrier above the gravel or below the gravel.

But still, you have a vapor barrier. And it's got to be a really durable cold temp resistance, puncture resistance. Well, she got back to me and she said they did use a vapor barrier. They used an eight mill thick vapor barrier.

Now, an eight mill thick, generally speaking, that is considered a true vapor barrier. But underneath the concrete slab, I like to do either a 15 to a 25 mill thick. And the reason for it is when you're pouring concrete, you know, essentially what's going to happen is you're going to have laborers walking on top of that plastic while they're setting rebiror while they're pouring the concrete and floating the concrete. Chances are they can puncture eight mill.

Exactly. Chances are someone's going to put a boot through it. And now you've lost your vapor barrier. And that's probably what happened here.

I believe that that eight mill plastic just was not thick enough. You've got holes all over it. And you're getting vapor pressure pushing up through the concrete. Now, here's the other thing.

It's a garage that does not have heat. And it's a situation where we can't we can't now put a better vapor barrier in there. It's too late for that. So what I recommended was a two part epoxy, something that we don't carry.

There's not really what's considered a healthy, safe version of epoxy. Although you can get what's called a 100% solids epoxy. And what that means is solids content is whatever is put on the surface is left on the surface once it's fully cured. So a traditional wall paint that is 50% liquid.

When you put on a coat, as it dries, you lose 50% of the thickness as it cures. 100% solids epoxy means you put down 4.5,000 of an inch. It dries to 4.5,000 of an inch. 100% solids epoxies are also going to have far less solvent emission in off-gassing because of the fact that they don't contain these things that continue to release.

So we usually recommend a 100% solids epoxy whenever needed. That's going to be your best bet. It's going to give you probably the best protection you're looking for and be extremely durable to your equipment and tools and so forth. Yeah, and I think you alluded to it earlier too.

And also, you know, the idea of mechanical air management, I think would make a lot of sense as well. Yes, definitely. I would recommend. And I'm sure they have this because it's a wood shop.

I'm sure they have really good ventilation systems, dust containment systems. All of that is going to be helpful and useful for the people working inside of there. I think it's really going to come down to making sure though that the surface is properly prepared for whatever you're using and that it will probably require making sure the slab is dry enough to accept whatever coating you put on. And you can test that just by testing the moisture content of the concrete.

Right, exactly. Wow. Boy, that was a mouthful of mail. How about that?

How about that? Yeah, folks, we really appreciate you sending emails and quite your questions into us. Andy and I really feel like if we can address your question specifically, we're probably answering questions not just for yourself but probably many, many others. At least we hope we are.

And we appreciate it. So thanks so much very much and keep it flowing. Definitely. We get these questions pouring in all the time.

And you know, it's tough as when your podcasting and you're constantly getting inundated with topics and ideas, which is fantastic. We want that. We want a bunch of people to send us all the ideas they got. And we're getting an outpouring of individuals who want to be interviewed on our podcast.

And we're going to start doing more of that relatively quickly. It's just that, you know, Jane and I have so much to say ourselves that we might even have to add a second weekly show once in a while just to go through all the questions and all the topics that we have. I'm visiting a doctor's going to install a mute button on me, that kind of mute me sometimes. That's a great idea.

I don't know. If it could be reversed, if I can have it researchically taken away in the future, they'll probably not. They'll probably have to have two of them installed. The power of technology these days, huh?

It's amazing. So, but yes, please keep the questions coming in. We love it. And we know that our listeners really enjoy listening to all this as well because as you say, there's so many people that have similar questions are in the same situation.

And so every couple of weeks, every few weeks, we'll try to have an episode like this where we just do nothing but answer viewer mail and listener mail. So I think that's it for this week, Jay. We will be back next week with another action packed episode of Non-Toxic Environments. And please make sure to go to iTunes and give us a rating and a review, folks.

That's really helping us climb up the charts. I think as of last week, we were the 20th rated, 20th highest rated alternative health podcast in all of iTunes. And that's with all the topics of all alternative health and medicine. We were rated the 20th out of, I think there's about 98 or 99,000 in our category.

Yes. Well, it just points out how important our topic is to everybody. And it just for sure. Clear that that's the case.

And I'm glad you and I are teaming up to help people figure that. It's a lot of fun. And we look forward to it each and every week. So folks, we will be back with you next week.

Keep the questions coming in and have a healthy week. The healthy folks. Hey, everyone. Don't forget, go to the greendesigncenter.com and use coupon code non-toxic for that 5% discount.