Learn tips and techniques to living a healthy holistic life

Green Building Products

Finding the right green building products can be quite the process, but the good news is that the green market is growing so fast that mainstream companies are now producing green products. What that means for you is that prices are going down and locating the products you need to build your healthy home has gotten a lot easier.

I spent a tremendous amount of time and energy researching what products I was going to use in my home so I hope that the information I am sharing with you here will be time-saving and helpful as you begin your green building project.

I am recommending the products below from me to you, consumer to consumer. These are products that I personally have used and continue to use and I am sharing my experience with you. There is nothing scientific about my process, it is simply that I use the product and if it works to my standards great, if not I do not continue to buy it or recommend it! My comments are from my personal experience and may differ from other consumer's experience. Bare in mind that building products at times vary in strength and life due to multiple variables such as climate and installation.

I am not affiliated with any of the products listed and do not benefit from the sale of any of the products on the list. Although if you go through my Healthy Holistic Living website and happen to visit a store in my Healthy Living Market Place to locate one of the products I do receive some small compensation that helps defer the cost of my website.

The primary criteria for choosing products that appear on these pages are that they be NO or LOW VOC and solvent free, and to the best of my knowledge, not harmful to living things. However, some products make claims or allude to being non-toxic and are not. I recommend that you research each product, review its MSDS and be sure that it meets your specific requirements and goals for your healthy home.

This is just a starter list, I plan to continue to review green building products as well as non-toxic household products on an on-going basis. So keep checking back to make sure you get the latest information.

Building Supplies

C-Cure Grout This is a good grout; the colors you will find are true to the color chart. Their is ONLY one issue. Because the product does not contain a grout sealer, it stains quite easily so you will want to use a grout sealer in areas you expect to spill a lot of stuff! And if you use it in the showers, you definitely need to use a grout sealer.
AFM Safecoat Grout Sealer I used this to seal the grout in my showers. I really didn't see the need to do it in any other part of the house. Keep in mind you are going to need this if you use C-cure grout.
Safecoat Safe Seal This is a really great product especially if you can't afford some of the more environmentally friendly products. For instance, we used it on all our doors. Even though they were all solid wood, the glue used to make the doors was toxic so we needed to use a sealer to prevent off-gassing.
Safecoat Dyno Flex This mastic is great for sealing around pipes during construction. I also used it around the hose bibs outside the house.
Taylor 2071 Tuff-Lock X-Link Wood Floor Adhesive According to the installers, they loved this product. We made a compromise on the product; it is Low VOC and has no solvents. We could not find a NO VOC product that would not negate our warranty. If you are looking for NO VOC, I have listed better alternatives below.
Titebond Construction Adhesive by Franklin International This is a solvent-free construction adhesive (NO VOC's) for plywood, paneling, hardboard and wet or frozen lumber. I personally did not use this product but it comes highly recommended from the green building supply stores.
Timberline 2051 Wood Flooring AdhesiveThis adhesive is for laminated plank and parquet flooring. Again this is not a product I used personally, but it is highly recommended by the green building supply stores.
Pittsburg Paint Pure-Performance Excellent paint, it coats beautifully. I really recommend this product. I was pleasantly surprised that I could remain in the house while my other half painted for over a week!
Cera CT-12 Ceramic Tile Adhesive This product comes highly recommended but the jury is still out on product quality. It seems to be holding but a few of my bathroom and kitchen tiles have separated which no doubt could be an installation issue. I will keep you up-to-date.
Murco Joint Compound This stuff works fantastic it can also be used as a texturizer. So far there is only one problem, it requires an additional day for drying and trust me your drywallers will not like that!
Fantech Fresh Air Intake System This seems to work quite well but I have nothing to compare it to and, really, how can you tell? The only warning I have for you is if you are not prepared to climb into your attic every three months to clean the filters don't get a fresh air intake system!!
Weldbond Universal Adhesive Great adhesive for all around projects. I am pretty handy around the house so I use this stuff for just about everything.
Gorilla Glue Gorilla Glue PVC Gorilla Glue is a fantastic wood working glue with an extremely strong hold. There is also a Gorilla PVC pipe glue that is non-toxic that I have not tried, but if it is anything like their regular glue I would use it in a second. And trust me, if it was available when I was putting my sprinkler system in I would have bought it by the gallon!
Kontaktkleber Contact Glue This is a basic around the house contact glue for ceramics, etc. This product seems to hold well on the few items that I have glued. The company is out of Germany so I couldn't list the link to the manufacturer but I did create a link to a store that carries the product. FYI, I have never purchased from this store so I can not vouch for them.
Zymol Cleaner Car Wax According to the guy at the auto store, he says this product works 100% better than the products with all the chemicals! I don't wash my car very often, much less wax it, so I can't weigh in on this, but it works quite well when I polish Tagua nuts!
100% pure silicone caulking. You can pretty much get this anywhere and it works great for all your caulking needs without all those annoying toxic chemicals! Although your painters may hate you for it! It is not as easy to work with as the standard caulking.

Healthy Home Tips

Boric Acid
Boric acid can be used as a treatment for roaches and termites. This is a wonderful substitute for pesticides. I recommend using it during construction. Sprinkle it in the walls between the studs prior to dry walling and on the foundation where you will have all your kitchen and bathroom cabinets installed. You can get this at almost any hardware store, but make sure you read the bottle to make sure they did not add a very toxic chemical to kill roaches. You want the plain boric acid.
Try cleaning mold with a paste made out of borax laundry soap and water. It takes a little scrubbing, but it will kill the mold and it is non-toxic.
IMPORTANT FACT: Bleach does not kill the roots of mold on porous material it only kills the flower, which is the gross stuff that we see so it only gives you the illusion that you have conquered your mold!

This was a snippet from one of my newsletters, if you missed it you can go to my back issues page while your there you should sign up for my E-zine!
Another option for mold is to use straight vinegar. It's a tad bit smelly but it will do the trick. Spray the vinegar straight on the mold and let it set without rinsing.
If you have a flat top range then you know how hard that can be to clean. And sometimes it seems like your only option is that very expensive, toxic white paste made especially for cleaning flat top ranges. The truth is that the only thing you need is baking soda and water! Who knew? First, let your range cool off and then sprinkle baking soda all over your range take a damp rag and clean using circular motions and scrubbing when you hit the grease spots. Let it sit for about ½ hour and then wipe clean! It's as easy as that!!
Do you have hard watermarks on your glass shower door? We have hard water in Florida and it seems like the marks get etched into the glass! They are a real pain to clean! I have tried everything and it turns out that good old baking soda is the answer to that as well! It never ceases to amaze me how versatile baking soda is! First, create a paste of baking soda and water and use a soft scrubby to apply the baking soda to the watermarks using circular motion and a little scrubbing. Let it dry and then come back and clean it with straight vinegar again using a scrubby. All the watermarks should come right off. You may find a few stubborn spots but with a little extra work, it will come clean! Do this weekly and your shower door will look new for years!

FYI, if you are on a budget, as we were, check around and look for sales. What I did was key in the product name followed by the word "sale" and did a web search. For the most part, I found great deals. But watch out for those shipping costs if you are buying heavy items and some of these stores jack up their shipping costs to make a little extra money.

If you would like more information on building a healthy home or healthy holistic living visit my Healthy Home page.