Is Your House Making You Sick?

June 09, 1990|By Lew Sichelman, United Feature Syndicate Inc.

WASHINGTON — If you suffer from headaches, nausea, joint pain, insomnia, skin rashes, anxiety, depression or a host of other maladies and your doctor cannot figure out why, your house may be the culprit.

``Our houses are making us sick,`` said John Bower, a Unionville, Ind., builder of totally nontoxic houses and the author of ``The Healthy House``

(Lyle Stuart, $17.95). ``Studies have shown that there is considerably more pollution indoors than there is outdoors.``

According to Bower, the reason lies first in the building materials used in a typical house, or more specifically, the 500 different volatile chemicals they emit, and second, in the fact that houses now are built so tightly that the gasses cannot escape.

While some gasses are merely irritants, others are carcinogenic. In most cases, the concentration of toxins that are emitted decreases as the materials age. Nevertheless, cumulatively, they can destroy a person`s health.

That happened to Bower`s wife, Lynn, six years ago when they were renovating a circa-1850 federal-style house. As they worked and lived in the house, she developed inflamed sinuses, stomach and kidney problems, breathing difficulties and muscle soreness.

The couple soon learned that she was being poisoned by the

``outgassing,`` or release, of fumes from underlayment, carpet, vinyl, insulation, paint and other synthetic materials they were installing in the house.

Lynn, whose condition finally was diagnosed as multiple-chemical sensitivity, became so ill that they had to leave the house, and John went about the task of building a new, hypoallergenic house for his wife.

Now, three nontoxic houses later, John Bower is one of the few experts in the field-his book explains how to buy and build clean houses-and he believes other builders should follow his lead.

``You don`t have to have a big price increase to build a generically healthy house that eliminates most people`s sensitivity problems,`` the builder, 40, said. ``The cost can range from zero to 25 percent, depending on how carried away you want to get.``

In Bower`s own house, for example, he has substituted steel framing for wood to eliminate the need for toxic termite treatments. The steel costs about 2 1/2 times as much as wood, but the studs can be placed 24 inches on center rather than 16, which means not as many studs are needed.

Still, framing for the 1,200-square-foot house costs about $400 more than it would have had he used wood.

But the difference just about equals the cost of the now unnecessary termite treatment, which, he said, ``is a really nasty chemical designed to kill.``

Bower also believes that ``there`s money to make`` from nontoxic houses and building materials, and he predicts that just as energy efficiency was a strong selling tool in the 1970s, health will be a major marketing pitch in the `90s.

``It used to be news, weather and sports on TV. Now it`s news, health, weather and sports,`` he said. ``Most people say they would be willing to pay up to 10 percent more if they could get organically grown food. So this could very well be the hook builders and suppliers are looking for to attract customers.``

The Bowers` house sounds rather institutional-besides steel studs, it has a metal roof and metal siding, ceramic tile flooring instead of carpeting, stainless steel countertops and porcelain panels around the tub-but Lynn is an unusual, though not rare, case.

She was not born sensitive. Rather, her sensitivities were triggered while working with toxic building materials. But they never will go away, and like an alcoholic who never can have another drink, she never can leave their property in Southern Indiana.

``She can`t wear synthetic clothing or ride in a car without experiencing problems,`` her husband said. Because he, too, lives in a sterile atmosphere, he goes through a hangoverlike withdrawal whenever he returns home after being exposed to pollutants on extended trips.

Only a relative handful of people are, like Lynn, so chemically hypersensitive that they need the ecologically safe houses John builds. But he said that millions of others have minor sensitivities.

Particleboard, carpet and combustion appliances are the most common causes of problems, Bower said.

``Beyond these three, everything else-paint, caulking, even termite treatments-is down on another plateau,`` he said. ``So if just those three things were eliminated, it would make a world of difference.``

Particleboard, which is used as subflooring and in kitchen cabinets, is dangerous because the glue used to bond the pieces together has a very high concentration of formaldehyde. In fact, Bower said, ``there`s a good chance`` that there is more formaldehyde in a typical home than if it were insulated with urea formaldehyde foam, which has been banned.