My Bau-Biologie Home Inspection

Over the first weekend in December 2005, my house was visited by a group of Bau-Biologie students. They had completed their training with the International Institute for Bau-Biologie and Ecology to be Bau-Biologie home inspectors, and needed to do an actual home inspection under the supervision of the instructor before receiving their certifications.

This was a great opportunity for me to have my home inspected from a Bau-biologie perspective! And not just by one inspector, but by a dozen! Both my husband and I had developed some sleep problems in the past six months and some minor respiratory problems as well. I knew it wasn't chemical exposure, so what was it?

I learned a lot that weekend about my home, and also more about Bau-Biologie. There's too much information for one article--indeed it has taken me several weeks just to begin to digest what I learned that weekend--so today I am going to give you an overview of what happened, then in coming articles I will give you more details on specific subjects and tell you what we did or what we are doing to handle the problems that were found.

But first I just want to thank the Institute, the instructor Martine Davis, and all the student inspectors who came to inspect my home. Everyone in the group was intelligent, bright, interested, curious and caring--wonderful qualities for home inspectors! They were all careful and respectful in my home.

The one big thing that I learned from the inspection was this: what you don't know CAN hurt you. It's vitally important for each of us to really understand the environments we live in and how they can effect our health. My house was fine in the areas I knew the most about and it had the biggest problems in the areas where I had the least amount of understanding. The whole experience really reinforced for me how important knowledge is for one to have the ability to take respondibility for and control the factors that affect the health of one's body.

The Bau-Biologie Home Inspection begins with an interview and then they take measurements will all kinds of instruments, and samples that are sent to a laboratory. Some of these instruments cost thousands of dollars because of their accuracy. These aren't "home test kits".

Household Chemicals

The area I was most interested in was measurements for the presence of toxic chemicals in my home. Since that had been a major factor affecting my own health, I wanted to see if the things I had done to reduce chemical exposure in my home based on knowledge, observation, body reaction, and sensing would be confirmed by air quality measurements taken by scientific instruments.

I was disappointed to find out that air sampling for toxic chemicals wasn't part of the inspection for me. Air sampling is very specific as there are literally thousands of chemicals that could be present in a home. Generally, what a Bau-Biologie inspector will do is make a visual inspection first, and then order an air sample canister to be made to test a specific group of chemicals they suspect to be present.

In my case, there were very few potential sources of toxic chemicals in my home to test. Martine, the instructor, thought from her experience that the total volatile organic chemicals (TVOCs) in my home would be very low. These emissions were coming from things like the ink in my computer printer and various plastics that could be eliminated, but I need for my work. This underlined the importance of having one's workspace somewhere other than a corner of the bedroom. Work materials--even the least toxic and otherwise safest--will still emit some chemicals.

When I mentioned that my home hadn't been tested for chemicals to Will Spates of Indoor Environmental Technologies, he came over himself and measured the TVOCs. He has a nifty gadget called a ppbRAE TVOC meter. While it doesn't identify specific chemicals, it will measure many VOCs as total volatile organic chemicals present. The instrument costs about $10,000.

We started outdoors in my front yard. On a cold winter day (that's fifty degrees F here in Florida) the reading was zero. Indoors in my office and living room the TVOCs were 70-80 parts per billion (ppb). The reading was higher in and near the bathroom, which may have reflected the moldy odors from VOCs coming off mold (more about that later).

Will explained that while there is no Bau-Biologie standard for TVOCs, using this instrument it's been his experience that most people don't start complaining about symptoms until the TVOC concentrations gets up to around 350 ppb, however, sensitive people have reactions to buildings where the TVOC level is below 50 ppb. This is only one instrument of many used to perform a baseline IAQ profile for a building. He said a standard new construction, energy-efficient American home with no precautions taken could have a reading of 600-800 ppb and he has measured scented candles at over 1000 ppb. He was also pleased to see that I had an inkjet printer for my computer, as his measurements have shown that laser printers give off more TVOCs than inkjets.

The student inspectors did include a check for gas leaks and fumes with a TIF 8800A combustible gas detector. Components of natural gas, both burned and unburned, "contain substances known to the State of California to cause cancer or reproductive harm". Happily, no leaks or fumes were detected on my gas appliances or lines.

The student inspectors also measured carbon dioxide, as a general indicator of indoor air quality. Ideally, levels inside a home should be no more than 700 ppm, and the lower the better. A higher number indicates a lack of fresh air due to a tight building, a source of chemical pollutants, improper combustion from gas appliances, or a combination of these.

Carbon dioxide measurements were made in several rooms of my house with a Telaire 7001 Carbon Dioxide meter. They were found to be elevated. Since my house isn't tight, I don't have a lot of chemical pollutants and my gas appliances have proper combustion, they concluded that the elevated CO2 levels were probably due to the unusual number of people in the house (as we naturally exhale carbon dioxide). This demonstrated to me that when I do have more than a few people in the house--which happens at least once a month--it's really important to have more ventilation than usual to keep carbon dioxide levels low.

So I was happy to find out that I really do have a nontoxic home!

Humidity, Moisture Control, and Mold

Humidity is an important factor for indoor air quality that most people don't pay much attention to. In Home Safe Home, I included a short section on Humidity and mentioned "High relative humidity, over 50 percent, encourages biological agents--such as bacteria and viruses, house-dust mites, and molds--to grow and be released into the air." Then I went on to discuss how humidifiers and de-humidifiers can be used to control humidity both for comfort and to reduce biological agents.

But there is much more to know. As with toxic chemicals, it's better to reduce humidity at it's source rather than use a machine to try to correct an unbalanced environment.

At my house, I had conditions both outside and inside that were affecting the humidity in my home, which in turn led to a mold problem that is going to require some major fixing.

My inspection came with an excellent report that gave all the test results, along with explanations of the range of measurements that are ideal, weak, strong, and extreme.

The inspectors tested for humidity outdoors, and in my kitchen, living room, bedroom, and bathroom using a Extech Psycrometer RH300.

They also tested various materials for "relative wetness" using a Delmhorst BD-2100 MoistureCheck meter.

And when mold was found during a visual inspection of the crawlspace, a sample was taken for laboratory analysis.

These tests did turn up a major mold problem, which I will tell you more about in a separate article.

House Dust

Because I am not allergic to dust, I hadn't given it much attention in my house. But as I have been studying Bau-Biologie, I've been learning that chemicals can attach themselves to dust particles and persist in the home environment much longer than they would otherwise. And even if you don't use chemicals in your home, they can come indoors on your shoes from outdoor exposures.

The student inspectors checked my home for potential dust problems, including the type of central heat and air conditioning system I have and the type of filters I was using, and the type of vacuum cleaner I use. They gave me some surprising information about vacuum cleaners that I didn't know.

They also recommended that I have the ducts and air handler checked on my central heating and air conditioning system. That inspector came today and I learned about some important problems I need to address with my ancient equipment.

I'll tell you more about what I'm doing about dust in a separate article.

EMFs

And, finally, the student inspectors tested for electromagnetic fields.

Now I have a gaussmeter and I know how to use it, but they had many more tests and meters. They looked at my electric meter, nearby power distribution line, and measured electric and magnetic fields all around the house. A man from Germany used an instrument not yet sold in the United States to locate and evaluate exposures from nearby cell phone towers.

The most interesting test to me was the body voltage test. They had me lay on my bed with sensors in my hands and then one by one they turned the different electrical circuits in my house off and on. With each change, they measured the amount of voltage actually in my body. It was amazing to see on the meter how my body was holding electricity. This really made an impression on me.

EMFs are really the most technical area of all home exposures. While many of the exposures to EMFs were low, there are a few things I need to fix, and some new developments you'll want to know about too. I'll tell you all about it in a separate article.

Setting Priorities

I got a lot of information from this inspection, and at first I felt overwhelmed. But then I began to see that there is a logical sequence for handling each of these problems.

If I hadn't already removed all the toxic chemicals from my home, I think that would have been the first priority. And so all of us who have been doing that have already taken the first step toward having a healthy home by Bau-Biologie standards.

Mold is the next priority. Or, if you have a really major mold problem, it might come first. Mold can permeate your entire home and infiltrate your central heating and air ducts, so there is no point in doing anything to improve your central system (if you need to) if there is a mold problem elsewhere in the home.

When you have the sources of problem chemicals and mold handled, then it's time to look at how the air is being circulated around your home, and what particles might be in that air.

And finally, electromagnetic fields.

Of course, if you have a specific sensitivity to chemicals, dust, mold, or electromagnetic fields, handle that first.

Conclusions

All in all, I'm really glad I had this inspection. It was more comprehensive and gave me more valuable information about factors in my home contributing to my health than I expected. I didn't realize how much there still was for me to learn.

If you have been working on making your home environment healthier and still are having health problems that you would like to improve, I would highly recommend calling a Bau-Biologie inspector. For a list of inspectors nationwide, visit the website of the International Institute for Bau-Biologie and Ecology.