Healthy Foundations

Home-building consultant Maryjane Behforouz has spent the last year and a half helping a family in her hometown of Indianapolis construct their dream house. The home will feature natural and local materials where possible, and nothing, from the cabinets to floorboards, will contain any formaldehyde, a probable carcinogen and a volatile organic compound (VOC) that poses a serious threat to indoor air quality.

A healthy home is important, explains Behforouz, who consults through her firm, Healthy Structures. "It's shelter and it affects our health as well as the environment," she says, adding that this house will be as energy efficient as possible, with a high-end HVAC system and expertly sealed ductwork.

Behforouz became acutely interested in improving indoor air quality after her mother, who had undergone chemotherapy to combat breast cancer, found herself unable to move into the beautiful new home she had purchased. The chemo made her highly sensitive to the chemicals offgassing from the conventional products in the house.

Those chemicals, which are nearly ubiquitous in the typical American home, may have included neurotoxic toluene from polyurethane foam insulation; potentially carcinogenic and respiratory-irritant VOCs from paints, glues, finishes and carpets; formaldehyde in pressed-wood products and wood finishes; and phthalates, which have been linked to reproductive problems, obesity and asthma, from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipes and floor tiles.

Like Behforouz's mother, the Indianapolis homeowner says her choices were motivated by chemical sensitivities, and Behforouz says she's seeing more interest from potential homebuyers in green and health-conscious designs, due to rising alarm about global warming and concern about "sick building syndrome," in which poor indoor air quality has led to serious illness.

And it doesn't have to be expensive. All the features being incorporated into the Indiana house have added only 10 to 15 percent to construction costs.

The benefits of green building are substantial. In addition to healthier air, homeowners have less exposure to mold and other allergy triggers and save on energy and water costs. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the country's residential sector is responsible for about 22 percent of national energy use. The average American household annually spends about $1,500 on energy. However, homes could be between 30 to 50 percent more efficient, according to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), if they featured Energy Star-certified appliances or adopted readily available techniques, such as proper insulation and programmable thermostats.