Green Your Home: Ideas with Style

By Dawn Hintgen, AKBD
Co-Owner & Eco-Kitchen Designer at Common Ground Green Building Center

The Anatomy of a Healthy Kitchen Remodel

The Kitchen is truly the heart of the home. Not just for cooking anymore, today’s families gather in the kitchen for eating, doing

Photo courtesy of Common Ground Green Building Center

homework, surfing the web, entertaining, and just hanging-out. When the phrase “Healthy Kitchen” comes up, most people think of organic or heart-healthy food; but there is another equally important factor to a healthy kitchen – the quality of the air we breathe during the time spent there. With modern families typically spending 90% of their time indoors, the rooms we spend the most time in become the most important as far as indoor air quality; and the kitchen has become one of those rooms. Choosing materials for the kitchen that reduce or eliminate these indoor air pollutants does not limit style, color, or quality in any way. Many great products are out there for creating a beautiful, functional, modern kitchen that feels good to live in as well.

What to Avoid

Many items contribute to indoor air pollution, and every home has different factors. Whether building new or remodeling your kitchen, the two main culprits in the materials generally used are formaldehyde and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Formaldehyde, a colorless gas with a pungent odor, is found in virtually all homes and buildings. It exists at low levels naturally, but at elevated levels formaldehyde greatly irritates the eyes, nose, and lungs. Released into the home from a variety of indoor sources, formaldehyde is more prevalent in new homes and on remodeling sites because it is common in standard plywood and particleboard, as well as paints and finishes. This gas caused many of the occupants of the FEMA trailers used for housing after Hurricane Katrina to become ill and have to abandon their temporary housing.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are gases emitted from certain solids or liquids. Some VOCs include chemicals which have short- and long-term adverse health effects; some are even known to be carcinogens. Paints and lacquers, paint strippers, cleaning supplies, pesticides, building materials and furnishings, and glues and adhesives are some of the items that are known to release VOCs.

Cabinetry: The Heart of the Kitchen

When planning a new kitchen or a kitchen remodel with a healthy house in mind, using cabinets that are made of formaldehyde-free or low-emitting plywood and have UV cured, water-borne finishes will take the biggest bite out of the air pollutant load in the kitchen. Cabinets generally occupy the principal space in the kitchen, so between the box materials and the finishes used, the potential off-gassing that occurs in the kitchen due to cabinet materials adds up. Cabinets made out of formaldehyde-free plywood greatly reduce the amount of toxins leaching into the kitchen over time. Using UV cured waterborne finishes on cabinetry not only eliminates many of the VOCs and other hazardous particles that off-gas into a kitchen space, but they also cure harder than traditional oil-based finishes, producing a product up to the wear and tear that growing families put on a kitchen over time. From traditional painted cabinets to ultra-modern recycled veneers, eco-friendly cabinets can be found in any style, so do not limit design wishes at all.

Walls: The Skin of the Kitchen

Walls take up another big area of real estate in the kitchen making the paint selection another easy place to reduce toxin levels in the kitchen. Although there are many claims of low-VOC paints out there, not all paint is created equal as far as healthy air is concerned. Zero or low VOCs in paint is important, but this does not guarantee that all the other pollutants that are commonly found in paint will not be there. Any paint used where a family will be spending time should be non-toxic as well as zero-VOC. The tints used to color paint can add VOCs and toxins as well, so making sure zero-VOC tints are used is also important. Zero-VOC tints can be used to create any color, so getting a great quality, zero-VOC, and non-toxic paint will not hinder any design choices at all.

Photo courtesy of Common Ground Green Building Center

In the details: The Bones of the Kitchen

Besides cabinets and paint, the choice of counter tops, flooring, backsplash tile, and other finish materials all have a big impact on the indoor air quality of a new kitchen. Everything from the grout used for the back splash tile to the type of sealer used on the counter top has an impact on what is going into the air. Flooring is another item that takes up a large portion of the kitchen space, making using natural flooring that has formaldehyde-free glues and non-toxic finishes an important factor. For all materials, looking for a third party certification, such as GREENGUARD Certification insures that someone other than the folks making and selling the products have tested to insure that the product is not adding any toxins to the home.

Looking for products proven to promote indoor air quality is not only good for the planet as a whole, but also better for the air you breathe every day – keeping you and your family healthier today and down the road and making the heart of the home somewhere you can truly feel good about your family gathering in.