Monthly Mailbag Bonanza

It's the last week of the month, and that means it's time for mailbag bonanza. Today Jay and I will be talking about a number of questions that came through through email and speak pipe, answering these questions and more today on non-toxic environments. Jay, it is great to be back on non-toxic environments with you. How have you been the last couple of weeks?

Andy, it's getting hot out here in San Diego. Getting hot. Getting hot here in Wisconsin too. I think it's going to, tonight it'll only be down to 40.

Oh my God. Right. I have to wear my long johns for that kind of stuff. You know, I think what's interesting is the idea of hot because a couple of weeks ago, folks, I hope you caught our podcast on doing things during the summer.

Looking and walking around your home, Andy and I took a little virtual tour around your property and we took a look at things we thought maybe could use a little bit of work. We hope that you caught that hot topic a couple of weeks ago. That was a good topic. And then we followed that up with, well, you were here in town and we did a podcast live podcast events.

And we did that in two parts because it was so long, which is kind of why we missed last week. We decided to take the week off. And quite honestly, folks, it's busy season. So it's hot in San Diego.

It's getting warm across the country. It is busy season for us and for not only safe code paints all over the country, but with green design center and building projects may historically has always been our busiest month. This year is no different. And we don't see any signs of it slowing down at all.

But on that note, I mean, it's probably good to say, well, this is why we delayed the podcast for a week because, you know, while we love doing the podcast, we love getting information out to all of you. We also have to run our businesses and we just didn't have the time to do it. So we apologize for that. But we're really happy to be back here today.

And hopefully you'll get quite a bit out of this show. This particular episode, Jay, we're doing a from the grab bag from the mail bag again, because so many questions have come through in the last few weeks. So we thought we should knock a lot of those off today. Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

Just one last little point I want to make about being hot. In that show, we talked about getting ready for projects in the summertime. And one of the things we did discuss and this reiterate lining up your contractors as soon as possible because they'll get busy too. And the last thing you want to say, be ready to go and have a contractor say, sorry, I'm booked for the next six months.

Oh, exactly. Just think about it, remind me. So Andy, I've got a grab bag. You've got a huge grab bag.

My God, the US Postal Service is going to start charging this for this stuff. Exactly. Well, you start. OK, so here's a this is a gal named Kim.

And this is really pertinent. Here's her email. I'm working with a client. So we have an only she works with a client who clients who have chemical sensitivities, but she's stuck on a couple issues.

They want to install new decking. Very topical. All right. Yet the client wants a lighter wood.

We're looking at cedar, but was wondering if pressure treated wood was purchased and what product could seal in the chemicals used in the decking. While pressure treated wood is not our best option, I'm trying to figure it out if it is an option at all with ways to mitigate it. Also, do you have any types of products that would work on composite decking or whether it need to be a seal or necessary in composite decking for chemical sensitivities? Thank you, Kim.

Kim, good questions there. I know we've talked about decking on some of the past podcast. I think we've talked about it in that one about looking at things for the summer. But digging into materials a bit here, cedar is obviously a good choice for decking because cedar is naturally rot resistant and weather resistant.

Cedar contains naturally a tannic acid, which is really good for helping it be rot resistant. Now, that said, cedar will naturally gray over time. If you don't mind that, you don't have to do a thing to it. If you want to keep it looking like a natural cedar color, you have to stain it and the stain you get to use essentially puts big blotches of pigment into the wood fiber so it blocks the UV rays.

There are some options out there. With AFM, the Duro Stain, the original water-based stain, and you would top coat it with a water shield, but very, very thin amount of water shield because you don't want it to stay sticky. There's also another product called Timberox. Timberox is an exterior stain made from castor oil and lime juice, and that comes in a variety of colors.

That's a one-step product, but it does contain castor oil, and oils have a tendency to amber the wood a little bit. Back to your original question, Kim, it's about the depth of color and finding a light wood. Pressure-treated pine is a good choice, especially if you can find a version of it that is pressure-treated than kiln-dried. It's a new type of pressure-treated wood coming into the market.

It should be available in your area now. It is pressure-treated without using any of the arsenic that used to be used. It's all non-toxic pressure treatments now, but then they kiln-dry it after the treatment, so the wood comes very dry. It's a lot lighter than traditional pressure-treated wood, plus you can finish it right away.

The problem with both cedar and traditional pressure-treated wood is you really should not put any stains or sealers on it for at least six months, because it needs time to cure. It needs time to dry out. The tannic acid and cedar has to come out before you put a sealer on it, otherwise the sealer will get destroyed. There's a lot of issues with that.

This new kiln-dried after pressure treatment wood, you don't have that problem. There's no toxicity issues to it, so definitely look for that. The other part of the question was about a composite material. There aren't any composite materials that you really want to put a stain on.

It ends up getting sticky and gummy, so you really have to stick with the colors that that material comes in. That's probably a topic for another discussion sometime. I would say if you have any questions about specific brands, maybe give us a jingle, send us another email, but I would say best bet stick with either cedar or pressure-treated and kiln-dried wood. The composite decking, there's a lot of good products in the marketplace right now, and I think you're right.

I think that might be a topic we could discuss in a separate podcast. I have an old Trekx deck on the back of my property. The old Trekx deck, remember those? I do.

Kind of one of the first entries in the marketplace. It's done fine. I mean, one of the interesting things about some of these decking materials, this is consistent with other decking materials too, you can get a long life out of them because, and I know this is done, maybe it's not a common practice, but you can flip your decks over. Exactly.

Right? So you've got one side and it starts to look a little weird and funky and you can flip it over and you've got a brand new deck without having to buy new lumber and do all the cutting and measurement and everything else. There's some workarounds there, but again, that's probably a whole different show and we can get into the nuances of that for sure. All right.

I hope that answers that first question. What do you got from the producer? No, that's a pretty good answer to me. I'll tell you what, I'm all in on that.

Here's another one. I've got this one. This is from Aaron and Aaron is asking, the place I'm living in will be doing a chimney rebuild. I'm wondering what product to use on the chimney after the construction is complete.

Can you give me some advice? It would be greatly appreciated. So a new brick chimney, she didn't say that, but let's assume it's a brick chimney. Okay.

And they're probably doing the whole thing. I guess one of the questions she didn't articulate this, but are there a specific appearance that she's looking for? Well, and even more so. This is maybe a slight critique of the question and hopefully everybody will pick up on this for future questions.

When somebody asks me over the phone, I am looking to seal my new chimney. My question back is, what are we trying to seal in or seal out? In this particular case, all she said was, what product do I use? We don't know what she wants this product to do.

And so the more information, the better. If you want to give the new brick water repellency, if you want to give it protection against what's called effluorescence that comes from new brick, my recommendation always is either the AFM water shield or the penetrating water stop. And I recommend both, but test to see how you like the finish. Is that right, Jay?

Yeah, that's right. Generally, Safeco water shield will deepen the color just a touch. Penetrating water stop doesn't really exhibit that. But I think you're right.

And folks, just kind of an FYI, if you're writing us emails, the more information you can share with us and your questions, the better. Because then we can really address them point by point as Andy just made the remark about, you know, what exactly is it that you're trying to accomplish here? You know, are we sealing something in or trying to keep something out? I think those are, and it sounds real basic, but a lot of times people forget the little detail of something, because you know what you're thinking about.

You know what you're thinking about, but to be able to ask us a question so we can kind of climb into the cage with you and understand exactly all your motivations, then that gives us, and that gives anybody really that you're talking to a better idea about how to give you a recommendation on what to do. Yeah. And so we just want to make sure that we are valuing your time as well as we can, as well as our own, and we have a lot of folks to help out on a daily basis. And we want to make sure we answer your question correctly.

And so, yep, just like you said, the more information we get at the start, the better. Yeah, and I can write her back and just kind of quiz her out on that and make sure I understand what she's really going for and then help her out. Okay. That was a good one.

Let's see what's this one. This one is from Becky. And Becky's asking, she's identified herself as having chemical sensitivity. I always buy used cars, but the carpets still bother me.

Do you have a specific recommendation for sealing automobile carpets? I have a 2011 Prius and the smell is still too strong for me to be in it without my charcoal filter mask. I'll tell you where she is on the scale of chemical sensitivity. I will say this.

Yeah, exactly. I will say this. We actually did an entire podcast on this subject. Boy, that must have been last year sometimes.

Yeah, which one? We'll have to go back in the archive and figure out which one that is. Maybe can drop that into the show notes or something. Yeah.

So it's episode 131, which was back in October of 2018. It was called the Hidden Toxins in Cars and How to Make Yours Healthier. Perfect. I've felt quite a bit with that.

So let's just leave it at that because that's a kind of a long conversation. But she can certainly find out information. Everything you need to know right on that podcast. Episode 131 of Nontox environments.

Perfect. That was at Slam Dunk. And it is basketball season. The first game of the NBA Finals is tonight.

So perfectly slim. Andy. Here's one. I'm wondering which option.

This is from Melissa. I'm wondering which option would be best to use on kitchen cupboards, something durable that I can wipe down for cleaning from time to time. Boy, isn't this just kind of a common question? It's a common question.

What's really frustrating to me is there's no problem. I know what to recommend. And of course, we're going to recommend one of the AFM, either the Acrylac for a Clear Finish or the EcoLac for a Painted Finish. But here's what frustrates me.

There are so many manufacturers of kitchen cabinets out there. Hundreds. Not thousands. And you know how many of them offer healthy finishes as either as a standard or as an option?

None of them. You actually have to go to custom cabinet makers and request that they use healthier finishes. Otherwise they'll use water-based finishes that still off gas for many years. They'll call them green.

They'll call them healthy. But they don't really know what they're talking about. So I deal with this question on a daily basis. And it puts the all the strain, all the stress onto the homeowner to do it themselves and homeowners.

Unless you are a hobbyist who loves to do wood finishing, this is a huge project. And I don't expect most homeowners to have the time, the skill set to be able to finish or refinish the cabinetry and make them look good. It's like asking someone to go into the kitchen of a Michelin three-star restaurant and cook dinner for everybody. Right.

I mean, you can't eat in a way. I mean, this is not going to happen. Well, here's the thing. And that's a great analogy.

You can have the most expensive, most wonderfully tasty ingredients. But you need the expertise of the chef to put them together. In this case, you need the expertise of a wood finisher to finish these cabinets. So to answer the question, there are products out there that are healthy, durable.

You'll love the look of them aesthetically pleasing. But it requires professional application to make them look good. Yeah, for those people, just a quick referral here that I know may be Andy, you know. But the two that come to mind, there's a company here in the West Coast in Oregon called Neil Kelly Cabinets.

For those of you folks who really want to consider having someone do some custom building for you, Neil Kelly in Portland, or in the Portland region, I think, is one company. There's another company on the East Coast called Furniture. Furniture. And their focus actually is to build furniture for the chemically sensitive.

That's something that's really important to you. Yes, they'll build furniture, but they don't build cabinetry. Correct, correct. They don't do cabinets, but they will do furniture.

So I just want to add that real quickly. With both manufacturers, though, to always ask for the safe coat finishes. Do I just want to make sure you're getting the right finishes? Correct, correct.

So I've got a question here that came through. Audrey, what a question to us a couple of weeks ago. I got back to her via email already, but I thought it would be really nice to talk about this. Does AFM or another non-toxic brand have a product that can be used to waterproof a shower enclosure?

The surface would be tiled over. The backing material we want to use is magnesium oxide board. What do you recommend? Well, I know what you would recommend, Jay.

Yeah, walk through it, though, because this comes up quite a bit. People are trying to seal the board, and then they want to tiled over it. So they're concerned about moisture, obviously. concerned about moisture, and I'm concerned about the magnesium oxide board or MGO board.

I know that there are a lot of folks that are starting to promote MGO board as a great backer material. The problem in a shower is one of the beauties of MGO board is that moisture can go right through it and it doesn't affect the integrity of the board. In a shower situation, the entire premise of tiling a shower is to keep water from getting to the studs and insulation behind it. If you use MGO board, you're asking for water to go through it.

If there's any slight crack or chip in the grout or the tile, water will get into it, and it will be a mold problem. The first thing I recommend is you don't use MGO board as a backing material in a shower. Use it for backing for floors. That's fine, but in a shower, you've got to use something that is completely impervious to water.

I recommend a brand called Schluter. S-C-H-L-U-T-E-R. Schluter makes a whole series of products designed specifically as tile backers for showers. How widely available is that, Andy?

It's available at Home Depot and Lowe's. It's available at tile distributors across the country. They make kits that are just ready to install, and they make product that you can use for custom-sized showers. You have to ask for it when you go to Home Depot.

Am I Home Depot? I haven't looked for these kind of things. I don't know if I've seen it. Do you have to ask for it?

It's not a shelf, but you'd want to ask them to bring it to that location and to make sure you're buying the right product. Now I know AFM makes DinoSeal, which is a waterproof coating. DinoSeal is great if you want to waterproof what's called the shower pan, which is the floor of the shower. You would do either a cement pan and then put two or three coats of DinoSeal over it, and that becomes your waterproof barrier.

Again, the whole question came up about using MGO board. If you're using MGO board as a tile backer, and then you're sealing it with DinoSeal to make sure it's waterproof, it completely negates the effect of using the MGO board in the first place. You're not getting the benefit out of it. Right.

Right. So I do it. So hopefully that answered the question. I know she got back to me and she was very happy for the response and probably saved her some aggravation because the other problem with MGO board is it's not very easy to get.

It's not available everywhere. Right. That can be a big deterrent. A lot of people get really excited about these ideas and they go down to try to get this stuff and it's like, whoa, exactly.

We've got to wait for it for a long time. Exactly. This is kind of the complications of these things, but it's getting better folks. We don't want to cast you to talk a picture here about what's going on.

All right. I've got one here. This is from someone McLaren. I want to seal the Vox coming off from my concrete floor.

The area has been reme- oh, here you go. The area has been remediated from mold and we don't know how they're remediated, but the smell remains. The floor was recently 10 months ago painted with a one part epoxy paint from another brand that we won't name. I would prefer a clear color finish.

A clear color finish, interesting. That isn't slippery, but the most important characteristics are odor sealing and bonding to the existing finish. Thanks in advance, McLaren. So I call this a unicorn product because I don't believe it exists.

And so let's break that down a little bit. So they did mover mediation. Yeah. They've got a smell from the concrete floor and we've got two culprits here.

Go ahead. Yeah. So concrete itself always has a smell to it because concrete contains lime. Lime has a smell to it.

And so it's a basement floor, right? Did not say that. Did not say that. Oh, well, missing ingredient there.

Okay. Well, it's a concrete floor. So on slab on grade or basement, it's going to have moisture in the slab. And as moisture comes out and becomes airborne, it carries with it the smell of the surface that it came from.

And so that's why concrete floors have this strong odor, like a musty odor to it. It's really not musty. It's actually just a lime in the concrete. Now, mover mediation, traditional mover mediation is done using some fairly toxic chemicals and which also have problems of their own, which is why they probably put an epoxy coating over it to protect it afterwards.

Yep. And so the wording says nothing sticks to epoxy besides epoxy. Epoxy. Yeah.

And so this is actually the second time it's come up today now with this question. Folks, there are certain epoxies that I will recommend in certain applications, but generally speaking, once you've gone to an epoxy, you either have to completely abrade it off or you've got to stick with epoxy. There's really no way around it. Specifically, there is no water-based material that'll stick to an epoxy.

Most solvent-based polyurethanes and acrylics won't stick to an epoxy either, which is also what makes epoxies so awesome to work with in certain applications. So if you can find what's called a 100% solids epoxy, 100% solids means it doesn't have any solvent that will off-gas during the curing process and allow the coating to shrink. So there's nothing that really comes off of it during the curing process. 100% solids epoxy will be the safest epoxies that are out there.

They're very expensive. They're very difficult to work with. Professional professionals don't like working with them because they're kind of sticky, but they work wonderfully and they're not as unhealthy as traditional epoxies. Otherwise, there's really nothing out there that I can think of that will seal the epoxy, give you a durable, slip-resistant finish using something safe.

There's really nothing out there. So unless you can think of anything, Jay. I can, I think you addressed it just right. If you can find 100% solids epoxies, and that's probably your best option.

I mean, obviously, the only other thing for them to do at this point, if they are having a problem with the epoxies to get it off of there, which means grinding it off. Yuck. But unfortunately, what else are you going to do? Yeah.

Sometimes you have to do radical surgery, folks. We try to prevent that from in our discussions and our recommendations. We try to make this as painless as possible. There are some situations, as one points out, where you got to do some surgery.

Just what it boils down to. It's better to do it that way instead of trying to piece it together, trying to put a band-aid on it, trying to figure out what's working and find out later it's not working at all. You wasted time and money. You didn't move an inch.

Well, and neither one of us want to make any recommendations that sound good on air and promote products that we might deal with, but it ultimately won't really work. We're all about giving you the right information, whether it's sometimes not as good as you want to hear. Yeah. So I got one question that we got time for one more.

Okay, one more. But this is really timely because we are into summer and this is when a lot of homes are being re-rofed. Questions came in from Rich. And Rich says, we are going to be having a new roof installed and we are replacing a traditional asphalt shingle roof.

Will we smell the new roof on the inside of the house and does it impact the air quality? The reason why I'm asking is because my wife has severe chemical sensitivity. My initial thought is it's on the outside and it may not matter. I am not aware of a practical alternative.

Thanks for what you guys do and have a great day. Rich, this question does come up quite a bit, especially this time of year. When it comes to roofing a home, there are three things we have to look at. The most important is going to be the budget.

Re-rofing is a huge money issue, right? Initial cost for re-rofing a home is going to be anywhere from $8,000 to $20,000 using traditional asphalt shingles. If you use something like a metal roof, it's going to be four times that. If money was no object, metal roofing is my go-to for every application.

It's going to last 50 to 100 years. We don't have to worry about curling of the shingles. We don't have to worry about off-gassing and contrary to popular belief, you're not going to have to worry about electromagnetic field increases. I was just going to ask that and I think you were going to point that out because I knew that was coming.

Now, you do have to worry about sound because rain and hail will land a little louder on a metal roof, but there's insulation you can put in that fixes that. But here's what it really comes down to. In re-rofing the home, the most important thing to remember is that the attic in your home, and hopefully there is an attic in most homes there is, the attic should be the same temperature as the outside ambient temperature. It's 80 degrees outside, the attic should be 80 degrees.

If the attic is warmer on a sunny day, then the outside is, that means you've got a ventilation problem. If the attic is properly ventilated through soft vents, ridge vents, roof vents, powered roof vents, whatever you've got to do to make sure that that temperature differential is as low as possible, that means that you don't have to worry about any of that outside air coming into the home because there is a good layer of ventilation in between. That also means that you don't have a negative air pressure issue sucking air from the roof and into the volume of air inside the house. So I guess to answer your question, make a long story longer, you're not going to smell the new roof on the inside of the home once it's installed.

Maybe in the installation process you may smell it because of what's going on, what's being done, but once it's installed, if the attic is ventilated properly, there should not be an issue. Does that ask the question, Jay? That sounded really good. I like the metal roof idea a whole lot.

I think if the budget is there and you can do it, there's color and shape options, there's all kinds of things happening in the middle roofing business right now. You know, there's other things like cedar shake and there's there's sleights and so on and so on. I didn't even talk about those because they're done so infrequently, they can be done and they're very expensive, but if it's a traditional asphalt shingle, I think you're good to go. I think so too.

Well, what a bag of mail that was. That was a good one. It was a good one. It was a good one.

And this is what Jay and I do all day long is answer questions like this to our customers and friends now for the years. And we appreciate doing this on the podcast so more folks can benefit from these answers. It's always our intention to be here every week to either talk to you with these questions or bring in topics or interviews with professionals across the country. So once again, I apologize that we weren't here here last week, but we needed that week off.

It was just a little bit too busy to get a show broadcast. It was an extra long, that remote podcast was so much fun for us to do that and it was longer so it made perfect sense. Don't be too hard on yourself. Okay.

Well, you were traveling after that too. I was. I was. I think it's just working out fine and people aren't complaining too much.

No, matter fact, the mail coming through lately has been so good from everybody. Just really enjoying the show and new folks are fine in the show every day. So I'm getting calls about episodes 102 and 103, our first few episodes and it's really, really exciting to hear that. So on that note, folks, if anybody has any topic you want us to talk about, please send us a note, either speak, pipe off the website or send us an email and yet degree of bring.com.

And we really appreciate you listening every week. We do. And we also appreciate when you leave us a really good rating and review on iTunes because that helps folks find us who are hopefully going to be new to the show. Couldn't say better myself.

All right, everybody. Thanks for listening once again. We'll see you next week. All right, Jay.

Thank you very much. We'll talk to you soon. Sounds good. Bye.

This week's episode of non-toxic environments is brought to you by the Green Design Center and Kalwell Anti-microbial Coding. For those of you who don't know, the Kalwell Coding is a water-based coating that can be used on interior surfaces in your home that are subject to mold, mildew, algae, fungi, and bacteria. The Kalwell product eliminates those problems by using a safe and effective natural material calcium hydroxide, otherwise known as lime, to kill off those issues and keep them from coming back for at least six years. Kalwell is water-based, free of VOCs, completely hazard-free, and most importantly, very acceptable by those who are the most chemically sensitive.

So go to the greendesigncenter.com and don't forget to use the coupon code non-toxic for your 5% discount.