Home Safe Home
Building a nontoxic environment was the driving force behind every choice made by a mother with debilitating chemical sensitivities.
By Amy Paradysz
Photos by Michael D. Wilson
Porch perfection: Solid pine, fresh air and a mountain view.
I LOVE THE SMELL OF THE AIR,” says Jill, standing on her porch overlooking the White Mountains and, in the distance, North Conway.
Her newly built home in Oxford County is a long way from her old fourth-floor apartment directly above a bus stop in Cambridge, Mass., where diesel fumes hung in the air.
This big move has been not only life-changing but potentially life-saving. Jill has myalgic encephalomyeltis (ME), a complex chronic neurological disease that includes multiple chemical sensitivities and causes debilitating fatigue, brain fog, headaches, and joint and muscle pain. One way to try to hold back the flood of symptoms is to reduce exposure to toxins—including volatile organic compounds (VOCs), petroleum products, and mold.
Jill, a divorced mother of two pre-teens (who prefers not to share her last name), closed her immigration law practice in Massachusetts two years ago when she became too ill to work even part time. With that tie to the city severed, Jill and her kids moved into her mother’s small summer cabin on Parker Pond in Fayette.
“The cabin was built in the 1960s, and nothing has really been changed,” Jill says. “It was ideal for me because many of the chemicals that we use today are not in that house.” Seeing modest improvements in her health there, Jill knew that she was on the right track. She wanted to buy land and have a home built from scratch with her nontoxic needs at the forefront.
Jill’s mother, Terry, says, “She didn’t have the energy to search for land. So, I did it. We were looking for the intersecting point between three dots: affordable land, away from toxins and in a good school district. As I was looking, Jill was researching and had been to see an immunologist who told her to stay away from as many toxins as she could. She realized, gradually, that she couldn’t be near a highway because of emissions. So, when I thought a piece of property had potential, I’d stand and count how many cars went by in one minute. When we got to the place she bought, it was one car per half hour.”
Terry says that the next challenge was understanding what constitutes “a healthy house.” While Jill researched the health aspects, Terry went to the Green Home Show in Portland in the fall of 2019. There she connected with architect Emily Mottram, who specializes in high-performance housing. Because all heating system options release toxins, a high-performance home—sited and oriented for maximum sunlight and fresh air—was the logical starting point for designing a healthy house for Jill.
Even before the land was purchased, Terry and Jill had a builder in mind, having had a positive experience with Stacey Brothers General Contractors of Parsonsfield rebuilding the porch on the lakeside cabin. Stacey Brothers was a good fit due to their preference for solid pine for everything from subfloors to roofing.
“Most builders—at least anyone building houses in volume—use plywood, Advantech, OSB [oriented strand board] or even chipboard,” says Jesse Stacey. “But pine boards are far superior. And every home we build is above code in terms of energy efficiency.”
It was a first-time collaboration between Mottram and Stacey, who met with all the subcontractors—from the excavator to the painter—to be sure everyone was on board with the nontoxic mission before work began. And, by all accounts, they were an effective team.
“If it weren’t for Jill’s illness and doggedness, there were times when it would have been easy to slack on standards,” Terry says. “There were times that Emily [Mottram] and Jesse [Stacey] reminded me there were things we didn’t want to do because of Jill’s health. They really took up the banner. And they came to professional decisions together rather than making me choose between opinions, which I appreciated.”
Those decisions included double-stud walls, pine sheathing, and a fully adhered water-resistant barrier over the exterior, as well as rigid mineral wool insulation (to avoid off-gassing). The two-story house can be heated or cooled with just two heat pumps. In case it’s needed, there’s also backup electric baseboard heat. And an energy recovery ventilation (ERV) unit ensures a steady supply of fresh outside air.
Materials
Solid pine (Limington Lumber)
Vermont Natural Coatings PolyWhey® stain
ROCKWOOL Comfortboard® rigid mineral wool insulation
SOPRA-CELLULOSE insulation, made of 85% post-consumer recycled paper and cardboard
ECOS Paints® organic paint
Coway Airmega AP-1512HH HEPA air purifier
Resources
Beyond the building science, there were myriad decisions related to avoiding toxins. “As we’re constructing tighter buildings,” Mottram says, “it becomes important to consider what toxins go into the house, making considered choices. Furniture, carpets and flooring can all have some VOCs. But there are alternatives, and the more we learn the more we’re able to push the envelope on what we’re able to provide.”
For Stacey Brothers, the biggest difference from their other projects was that they used low- or no-VOC paint from ECOS and whey-based stains from Vermont Natural Coatings instead of oil-based commercial options.
“Everything that we have put into the house has gone through a vetting process,” Jill says. “Sometimes there aren’t perfect options, and sometimes the perfect option is way too expensive. But we did everything the best way that we could—from the foundation to the Sheetrock to the insulation to the flooring and every paint and stain.”
Even the kitchen sink and all the plumbing (metal rather than PVC to avoid petroleum products) was chosen based on health considerations.
One challenge was finding kitchen cabinets without adhesives or laminates. Although Stacey Brothers are expert cabinetmakers, they didn’t have the availability to add hand-built cabinets to the workplan. At the construction site at lunch one day, Terry asked if they had any ideas. George Stacey, who cofounded Stacey Brothers a generation ago, said, “Maybe Henry Banks could do it.” Then, pointing at the White Mountains, he added, “He lives up there on one of those bumps.”
Banks, a local woodworker, would normally be busy running Tear Cap Workshops out of a former sawmill in Hiram. But due to pandemic closures, he had time to spare. “The cabinets are pieces of art,” Jill says. “Doing the types of cabinets that he did for us is really hard. There’s no overlay between the door and the edges, and everything had to be perfect. And, cost-wise, it didn’t end up being a lot more than a commercial option.”
The biggest point of debate in the entire process was whether or not to have a basement. Jill had grown up in a rural home with a wet basement, and in Cambridge she had lived in multiple apartments with mold issues.
“I was really worried that we’d do all this and then something like mold could make it unlivable for me,” Jill says. “But Emily [Mottram] was really knowledgeable about insulation and the moisture barrier.”
And the builder and excavator were confident and persuasive. Mottram says, “We had the opportunity to make it a full walkout basement because of the site geometry, but it is an unfinished space simply for mechanicals. We used ROCKWOOL Comfortboard® in the basement instead of foam.”
As originally designed, the house was a modest 1,152 square feet with three bedrooms. Then they added a garage and a first-floor bedroom and full bathroom in case Terry decides to move in someday. Other thoughtful additions include a computer nook with sliding doors and a porch large enough for a cot, where Jill sleeps on summer nights.
In her bedroom, the high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter is always on. But when it’s warm enough, she’s able to lie in bed with the windows open, gazing at the White Mountains and breathing in the fresh, clean air. Of course, none of this will cure Jill’s myalgic encephalomyeltis. “But when you start making these changes,” she says, “you see differences.”
Some aspects of the house are only low-VOC rather than no-VOC because complete avoidance wasn’t feasible or affordable.
“But, for all the things we couldn’t eliminate, we’re diluting them with fresh air,” Mottram says. “It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely much more conscientious than an average house.”
This article appeared in the Fall/Winter 2021 edition of Green & Healthy Maine HOMES. Subscribe today!