Building Materials for the Environmentally Hypersensitive

by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, 700 Montreal Road, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0P7, Canada. 235 pages, paperback, $29.99.

Unlike many other green building material directories, which list only preferred materials, this book covers preferred materials and conventional materials side-by-side. It is not a product directory in the sense of listing actual product names and manufacturers—all the materials are listed generically, with the exception of an occasional brand name for clarification.

The information is provided in a very useful format for anyone who deals with product selection and indoor air quality (IAQ), especially in new homes. For each of the 200 or so materials listed, the following categories of information are used:

•common product names;

•typical uses;

•a brief description;

•special considerations or properties;

•health issues;

•comments based on firsthand experiences of environmentally sensitive individuals;

•components or raw materials used in the product;

•distribution channels; and

•Masterformat™ number.

This information is gleaned from the experiences of the team of healthy building professionals (including

EBN Advisory Board member Oliver Drerup) that was assembled to write the book, as well as from material safety data sheets and, when available, results of emissions testing. The type of comment from users that frequently appears is “User must test” (for composite lumber and vinyl composition tile), or “This product is generally tolerated” (for copper pipe and galvanized steel). Occasionally, as for vinyl sheet flooring, the comment is more overtly negative: “This product is not recommended.”

Building Materials for the Environmentally Hypersensitive was originally written in 1993 under the title “A Guide to Healthy Building Materials.” Shortly before the book’s scheduled publication, a draft was obtained by some product manufacturers who objected to the concerns about their products. These objections led to the revised title, which is less likely to stir up concerns among the general public, and to a two-year delay in publication. “The target audience had to be narrowed down for us to be able to publish it,” says Dr. Virginia Salares of the Technical Policy and Research Division at CMHC. Some changes to the book’s content were also made, most of which served to improve the accuracy of the product descriptions and categorizations, according to team member Drerup.

It is unfortunate that the delay kept this valuable information from many users for the past two years. As a compilation of the collective understanding of healthy house designers, this book is a valuable resource for anyone dealing with IAQ problems in homes.