Buildings

Above and Beyond Government Building Codes

Q: My cousin Lucinda, who ran off with a hippie in the seventies but then settled down and raised a fine family, keeps talking about "healthy" houses. My husband, who thinks she "expanded her consciousness" a bit too much in the old days, thinks it's all a bunch of hype. He says that in this day and age — what with all the regulations, codes, inspections and all, if houses weren't healthy, the government wouldn't allow them to be built. I think Lucinda makes a lot of sense, but it's hard to get a handle on what she's really talking about.

A: Despite the fact that I've written and spoken quite a bit about the subject of "healthy houses," I share your husband's concern about hype, although not his faith in existing codes and regulations. We Americans have an extraordinary ability to identify a real problem, isolate some narrow "cause" of the problem, and then go out and buy a quick fix.

We are, after all, the people who spend millions on "healthy" cigarettes ("less tar, less nicotine") and hundreds of millions on products that simply replace an ingredient we know is unhealthy in large quantities, like sugar, with an ingredient we know very little about. Remember saccharine? I fully expect to open up the real estate section and see an ad for a low-fat, poly-unsaturated, salt-free 3-bedroom colonial: House Lite .

There is, however, substantial — and growing — evidence that our houses are causing us to become or contributing to making some of us sick and a small number of us extremely sick. And there is very little in our building codes which has anything to do with protecting us from houses that make us sick. Let me explain.

Traditionally, codes have been concerned with what's called "Life Safety" issues. For the most part, the approach is to try to identify hazards to life and limb, and eliminate them from the house. And "life and limb" has been taken quite literally.

The folks responsible for the codes have looked mostly at issues that pose an immediate threat to human life — minimize fire hazards, make sure the building won't fall down, etc. They've also been concerned about protecting people from falling down stairs or off of decks, falling through floors, etc. There's also been a strong focus on public health — things like handling sewage so that I'm not polluting my neighbor's well.

New technologies, new materials, and new products continue to lead to changes — sometimes improvements — in the codes to protect life and limb, and, for the most part, your husband is right. Most houses built today are "safe" in these traditional terms.

At the same time, we've learned a lot more about diagnosing illnesses in people and problems in houses. We've learned, for instance, that an estimated 50 million Americans suffer from allergy-related problems. Some of these are quite serious, like asthma. Most of them can be made worse by conditions found in typical homes. While not killing many people, these conditions are costing us billions of dollars in medical expenses and lost work time. These are the kinds of problems people try to address when they talk about "healthy" homes.

Earlier this year, the North Carolina Building Code Council turned down a request to allow unvented gas heaters or fireplaces in bedrooms. In doing so, the Council accepted the argument that they needed to consider a broader definition of people's health in their decisions.

Ventless heater advocates argued that they are safe, since millions are in use and there have been no reported deaths. Others, including a North Carolina public health official, argued that there is substantial evidence that these devices pose a health threat, even though they don't kill anybody. Most telling, perhaps, was the building inspector, who quoted the installation manuals about not using these heaters or fireplaces where pregnant women or people with asthma, heart disease, respiratory problems, and other conditions might be. How can these units be approved as "safe," he asked, when he has no idea whether or not those types of people will use the room with the ventless fireplace?

A ventless fireplace is just one of many products routinely put into houses that can contribute to illness in susceptible people. We know that a house that may be fine for me may make you seriously ill. We also know that simply eliminating this or that product is no solution to the problem. Each of us has to take responsibility for learning enough about ourselves and the various systems of a house — the structure, the envelope, the heating, cooling, and ventilation systems, the landscape, and the materials and furnishings — to make intelligent choices based on our needs.

It's turning out that sticking your head in the sand and hoping these issues will go away will only give you a mouthful of sand. Which is probably not too healthy.