Healthy house construction

The model demonstration house described in this paper was designed to optimize occupant health by minimizing indoor air pollution. This was accomplished by the use of three primary principles:  ELIMINATION, SEPARATION, AND VENm.ATION.1 Pollutant source strength reduction has come to be regarded as the most effective method of reducing indoor pollution. This is often easily achieved by ELIMINATING potentially polluting materials wherever possible, and using more benign low outgassing materials instead. Since it would be very difficult (and expensive) to ELIMINAIB all potentially polluting materials, the second principle of SEPARATION was used to isolate some materials (like insulation) from the actual living environment. The use of these two principles alone can lead to a fairly inert structure, however the third principle of VENTILATION remains important to supply the occupants with sufficient fresh air for respiration and to remove or dilute pollutants -generated by the occupants. As a secondary means of maintaining good indoor air quality, air filtration was also utilized. While VENTILATION and filtration can be used to remove or dilute pollutants emitted from the building structure, the first two principles are generally more effective and less costly approaches. The design and construction of this project is completely documented in a forthcoming book3 and a recently released video.