Green Means
Healthy Walls, Healthy Spaces
By Shannon Scott
Without walls
houses would be, well, tents. Walls
offer protection from weather, buffer sound, create shape, and impart
personality. Walls offer safety and
security while simultaneously creating functional interior and exterior spaces. Plan construct, and finish walls with care. After all, what would Fido’s portrait be
without a fabulous backdrop?
Straw bales, masonry, rammed earth, large
diameter logs, and double framing techniques often offer greater energy-savings
performance than regular framed walls. Inhabitants
feel more insulated and protected because they are more insulated and protected.
Stout walls radiate permanence. Since
exterior walls serve as physical and psychological barriers from the outside
world, make these walls thickest, insulating them well.
Interior
wall thicknesses and insulation capacities depend upon a room’s purpose and
personal taste. Insulate boiler or
mechanical rooms enough to keep unwanted heat from living spaces during hot
summer months. It may be a good idea to
insulate common rooms that adjoin bedrooms to minimize sound penetration.
A wall’s
length, depth, and height merit equally as critical as core, membrane, and
finish materials. Hallways of any
significant length, especially narrow ones, waste valuable, utilitarian space
and rarely prove interesting. Ceilings
too high for their floor areas make rooms feel like chutes. Homes divided into too many tiny rooms feel
smaller and cramped.
While
contemporary tastes have dictated open floor plans, comfortable corners and
cozy nooks offer intimacy and options for solitude. Small conversational alcoves along larger
room edges create couples’ retreats and friendship corners. One way to do this is incorporate half walls,
deep bay window areas, or libraries adjacent to larger living rooms.
Creative
green building enthusiasts and building materials manufacturers continue coming
up with healthier, higher performing interior wall materials. Gypsum board is actually a fairly green and
healthy product, its outer layers often made from recycled paper. Now, more drywall options are hitting the
market.
U.S. Gypsum
makes a standard drywall made with recycled residue from air scrubbers at coal
fired power plants. It’s strong, dense,
and more durable than standard drywall.
Higher density makes it better at retaining heat. It is slightly more expensive than standard
drywall, but heat savings may easily offset any cost differences.
Micronal®
PCM SmartBoard ™ has a wax-like
substance in the gypsum core. This waxy
core, considered a “phase change” material melts and solidifies (one state or
phase to another) within relatively narrow temperature fluctuations. As temperature change occurs, the wall absorbs
heat to catalyze the melting phase. This stored heat radiates back into a room, as
the waxy substance solidifies again.
Phase change drywall offers similar benefits of stone, concrete, and
other dense thermal mass materials without the associated weights or costs.
Walls
constructed with responsibly harvested and manufactured materials make our homes,
society, and natural environment better.
Using natural building materials increases connections with nature,
which improves physical and mental health.
This extends to finish materials as well.
Lime
plaster over straw or other solid, porous substrate breathes emitting negative
ions into interior atmospheres. Negative ions, the same ones that create the
sense of well being when standing near a water fall, are offered into interior
environments when transpiration takes place.
Transpiration involves the absorption and release of moisture into and
out of surfaces. It’s important for
straw bale walls to breathe or diffuse moisture, but lime can be used on nearly
substrate to achieve this purpose. Lime
can be finished using nearly infinite combinations of textures and colors.
Many
non-VOC and low-VOC (volatile organic compounds or chemicals) paints and walls
finishes have become available locally.
My favorite so far is Green Planet’s Clay Paint (The Green Building
Center, Salt Lake City, UT). It goes on
with a brush or roller like any other paint, covers beautifully, and affords
inhabitants a sound sleep since it doesn’t emit harmful vapors. Casein or milk paints have increased in
popularity, as have Venetian plaster finishes that look nearly like marble when
finished with a steel trowel.
Consider
walls carefully. Through them you can
create gala gathering rooms or dark man caves, elbow room or standing room
only. Walls dictate our movements and functions
in daily life. They have even dictated
how societies operate – just think Berlin, Ancient Rome, and China. Use walls sparingly. Humpty Dumpty may have eventually become king
of the realm had there never been a wall.
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