[Greenbuilding] A question regarding sealing in VOCs [Ventilation]
Don Lush
donlush at uniserve.com
Tue Feb 28 15:42:32 CST 2012
This is a somewhat related question (although it is a bit of a stretch!) - I am building a set of stairs with cherry treads and am looking for a finish -
It does not have to be too durable as there are only two of us in the house.
I do not want a high gloss (slippery) finish, I want the wood look but do not want a broken whatever after slipping and falling down the stairs.
I was thinking of some sort of oil finish that would leave the wood grain exposed - sacrificing some wood wear for maximizing safety and letting any VOCs dissipate with open windows in the spring and summer.
Any thoughts that the group may have appreciated.
Thanks Don
-----Original Message-----
From: greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org [mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of RT
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2012 2:39 PM
To: Green Building
Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] A question regarding sealing in VOCs [Ventilation]
On Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:30:17 -0500, marian dombroski <mdombros at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Jason, Do you know a good source for info on ventilation? seems like
> the game is changing a bit with new materials and methods entering practice.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 12:17 AM, Jason Holstine
> <jason at amicusgreen.com>wrote:
>
>> The potential to accelerate the offgassing but not adequately
>> ventilate and get the stuff pushed out of the building. So now you’ve
>> made the fishbowl a little more...fishbowl. Too many people don’t
>> know how to measure ventilation or how to manage it, etc., so it
>> becomes a big wildcard. It also typically needs the building to be
>> unoccupied (unless you want to hang out and sleep in 85’something degrees).
In this case, "ventilation" is about "over-ventilation" which is pretty much limited to being accomplished by mechanical means and "mechanical means" is pretty much limited to "fans".
If I were wanting to exhaust polluted air from a house that was being "Baked out", I think that I'd look at acquiring a salvaged squirrel cage blower from a furnace to use as the exhaust fan. They are usually discarded with the motor still attached. Obviously, they are capable of expediently handling the entire volume of air inside of a house with ease.
I don't think there's any law that says that a bake-out process needs to be done whole-house-all-at-once if the house is already occupied. (ie Typcially a bake-out is done pre-occupancy).
I don't see why it couldn't be done room-by room or zone-by-zone, with the house occupants avoiding the "hot" zone (which should probably be heated closer to 95 degF (35 degC) than 85 degF ). If doing it room-by-room, I think that I'd use a quartz element radiant-type space heater as the heating device rather than the house furnace.
Ideally one would wait until the season where outdoor temps are closer to the indoor bake-out temp so as to minimise heating energy consumed
(wasted) and when people tend to spend more time outdoors.
Please note: Much of this is speculation on my part as implied by the "I think" wording. I've never needed to do a bake-out. Best to avoid the use of off-gassing materials at the outset.
To answer Marian's Q., I would suspect that the Home Ventilating Institute website might have homeowners' info on the subject of home ventilation
http://hvi.org/publications/index.cfm
but if not, I'm certain that the CMHC website does (perhaps just a bit harder to find on that massive site).
--
=== * ===
Rob Tom
Kanata, Ontario, Canada
< A r c h i L o g i c at Y a h o o dot c a > (manually winnow the chaff from my edress if you hit "reply")
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