The Energy Fix Episode 126 - FINAL.mp3
2025-07-15
Transcript
0:00:13 Tansy Rodgers: Welcome back to the Energy Fix, a podcast dedicated to help you balance your energetic body by diving deep into the sweet world of all things health and spirituality. My name’s Tansy and and I’m an intuitive crystal Reiki energy healer, energetic nutrition and holistic health practitioner and a crystal jewelry designer. It’s time to talk all things energy. Let’s dive in. Today we’re going to be talking all about non toxic home building and how to create a home that is actually healthy for your environment, healthy for your body, healthy for your mind and your soul.
0:00:53 Tansy Rodgers: And you know, I couldn’t say, say that I planned this, but I sure think that this is coming at the most opportune time, the most beautiful time as things are getting super real over here in my world.
0:01:08 Tansy Rodgers: Super real.
0:01:09 Tansy Rodgers: The flooring for the new lit it’s Mind Body Studio is getting installed this Saturday, July 19th. I’m so excited. We’ve officially started moving into the new space space. I’ve started to move some of my furniture, some of my belongings, some of my tools into the new office space and I feel like the energy is finally starting to settle. I mean there’s so much stuff going on. I’ve been getting tons of questions about when are we opening, what’s the progress, what’s going on?
0:01:42 Tansy Rodgers: And you know, to be fair, there is so much swirling right now that there is, it almost feels overwhelming at times but, but yet I do still feel like the energy is settling just a bit. It’s all coming together in such a beautiful, divine timing kind of way. Synchronicities are filled everywhere and you know, it’s just, it’s starting to get just to be a vibe, you know, as we’re talking to people who can bring in workshops and contractors and oh, there’s just so many opportunities.
0:02:17 Tansy Rodgers: It’s really exciting. And so that’s exactly where the litist Mind Body Studio is flooring is coming. We’re getting things set up, we’re getting ready for mid September when we have our grand opening. We’re full steam ahead on building something that really blends community and movement and energy work and grounded wellness right here in the heart of Pennsylvania. So thank you for being part of this journey.
0:02:44 Tansy Rodgers: Thank you for being here, for your support. Your support is literally being woven into the walls as we are pulling everything together from this heart, this heart filled space. It’s quite exciting in all honesty, you know, and we’re going to be talking all about spaces today. We’re going to be talking all about what it means to be in A healthy space. Now before I introduce today’s guest, I just want to talk a little bit about what is coming up this Friday, July 18th.
0:03:20 Tansy Rodgers: Come on over. Back on over to the podcast. Tune in to week five of the Crystal series called Embodied Truth. We’re diving into the Throat chakra, how to get out of fear based expression. What it actually means to speak from soul alignment. It’s so, so raw and powerful and vulnerable. I love this Crystal series. I feel like just allowing people to take a foundational step, learn about what the chakra is, learn about the crystals and how to work with them and then giving some embodied action has been so beautifully well received.
0:03:59 Tansy Rodgers: So if you haven’t checked out any of the Crystal series yet, you make unsure to mark that on your calendar and get on over there this Friday because it is happening. Part five five of the eight part series, Enlightened Day at Reiki by Rickey’s is coming up in Harrisburg on Thursday, July 31st. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. If you are nearby, if you are going to be nearby, then maybe you want to pop on over and grab a session. There is only one energy healing session spot left.
0:04:35 Tansy Rodgers: So if this is something that interests you, make sure that you reach on out to me. If you feel like you’re voice has felt stuck or your nervous system needs a reset, this is your moment. And I will also say too, if you do not live locally and this is something that you’ve been wanting to try or that you want one of these mini sessions, then reach on out to me and we’ll do that virtually. Because energy knows no boundaries. No walls, no times, no locations.
0:05:05 Tansy Rodgers: And then on Sunday August 3rd 3rd we are back into expos again. I just had Midsummer Holistic Expo this past weekend and I got to see so many of your beautiful smiling faces. Oh my goodness. It made me so happy to hear that you are coming out to say hi to, to give me a hug, to see what I had on the table. Just to connect. Oh I love it so much. And so if you are in any of these areas during these expos that I’m doing, I would love for you to come out not only to say H and to connect with me but to also support the other small businesses because there are so many incredible small businesses that hang out at these places week after week, month after month.
0:05:55 Tansy Rodgers: Mile of the road after mile of the road. So on Sunday August 3rd is the Hershey Gem Jewelry and Rock Show. Come on out and say hi, get grounded, explore the tools. Especially if you feel that your throat chakra has been craving some specific tools. I have plenty of that there. You will be able to explore lots of options. So come on out and hang out. And even though this is still about a month away, I want you to mark your calendars.
0:06:25 Tansy Rodgers: The New Visions Holistic Expo In York, Pennsylvania, August 9th and 10th is a Saturday and Sunday. It’s one of the biggest holistic expos in the region and I will be there both days with jewelry, crystals and all of the good energy. So I would love for you to come on out. They have incredible, incredible speakers and it’s a huge event. Incredible speakers, incredible small businesses and every single year they’re expanding and doing so many great opportunities to get you involved. So if you are nearby, please come on out and check it out. It’s a really great weekend.
0:07:04 Tansy Rodgers: Now let’s talk about today’s episode. I have kept you waiting long enough. Let’s talk about today’s episode. If you’ve ever stood in the paint aisle overwhelmed, wondering which brand isn’t going to gas you out, or if you’ve tried to explain chemical sensitivities to your contractor and got a blank stare, you aren’t alone. You are not alone because today’s guest is going to talk all about that is how this came about for him.
0:07:38 Tansy Rodgers: He wanted to create a movement because he was tired of not seeing seeing the availability of non toxic healthy components to bring into your home when you are either remodeling, building or just doing a little redecorating. So he is going to feel like a deep breath of validation. I am joined today by Andy Pace, a true pioneer in the healthy home space. Andrew is the founder of the Green Design center, host of the Non Toxic Environments podcast, and one of the most trusted experts in the world when it comes to non toxic building, remodeling and product sourcing.
0:08:21 Tansy Rodgers: With decades of experience and a heart for people dealing with asthma and chronic illness or environmental sensitivities, he has helped thousands of homeowners and builders create spaces that actually support their health and not hinder it. So if you step back and you say, you know, I’m really sensitive to smells and chemicals and and toxins, then you’re going to want to listen to this because this stuff is lurking and hiding in places that I didn’t even realize and heck, I’m in this world full time now. Andrew’s work has been featured in places like Architectural Digest, Real Simple, Men’s Health, and he has speak in alongside people like Gwyneth Paltrow and Deepak Chopra at the Change the Air Summit.
0:09:16 Tansy Rodgers: What I loved most was that he isn’t just throwing around these fancy wellness buzzwords. He’s deeply practical, values driven, and truly gets the why behind making your environment match your energetic intentions. It is really a beautiful conversation and got me so excited to start doing some of my deeper exploration of my own home and the things that I choose to bring in. So I want you to get ready.
0:09:47 Tansy Rodgers: We’re going to rethink the spaces that you live, that you breathe, and that you heal in. Here’s Andy Pace. Let’s dive in.
0:09:59 Tansy Rodgers: Welcome to the Energy Fix podcast. Andy, thank you so much for being here today.
0:10:03 Andrew Pace: Oh, it’s absolutely my pleasure, Tansy. I’m looking forward to our discussion.
0:10:07 Tansy Rodgers: Yeah, I was telling you off of the air. I’ve been doing a little bit of a series, it seems, over the past year, talking about environmental toxins and things that can happen within our home when maybe mold, wetness, whatever might get into the home. But we’ve never actually talked about the building aspect and what to keep in mind when it comes to green design, sustainability, health from the building aspect and what you allow to bring into your home.
0:10:42 Tansy Rodgers: And so we’re going to be having that whole conversation. But before we get into it, I really just want you to, I want you to connect with us on more of that personal place. I want to know, is there a word or a phrase that you’re really embodying that you’re connecting with right now that feels important at this stage of your life?
0:11:08 Andrew Pace: It’s a wonderful question. I would say the, the one word where I’m at right now is reflective. I’ve been in this space, we’ll call it, for 33 years. So I started the very first healthy home supply company in the country back in 1992. And now that I’ve been at this for 33 years, you know, I’m looking back to all of those years and the trends that happened in the building industry and the home goods industry and all the progress that so many of us have made in this space for all those years.
0:11:44 Andrew Pace: And so, yeah, I’m in that reflective stage. But where most people after 30 plus years in a single career would be looking forward to retirement, I’m actually much more energized than I was, let’s say, 10 or 15 years ago, because I believe in looking back at all those years, I can see now that we have the ability to make more progress in the next five years than we did in the previous 30. So I guess reflective, yes. But really Excited about the future of this space.
0:12:19 Tansy Rodgers: Yeah. Well, so within that reflection, by the way, I think that’s so beautiful because so many people, when they’re in a certain field, a single career or a single component of a career for so long, as long as you have been, they can get complacent and just get stale. And so reflection, being reflective, I think is so important for evolution of whatever it is, yourself, your work, your career, your legacy, it’s important.
0:12:52 Tansy Rodgers: So I would love to know within your reflections, what have you seen? What have you seen that has kept you excited about the expansion and the evolution of the work that you’re doing, or even of yourself in the work that you’re doing? Doing?
0:13:10 Andrew Pace: It has a lot to do with first, understanding that any entrepreneur who starts a business, it’s not just a work, it’s not just a career. It’s essentially your life, and it absorbs into everything your family. There is no such thing as a work life balance when you’re an entrepreneur. It’s just it’s life, and it happens to include work. And so in reflection and looking back at those years, I think about.
0:13:43 Andrew Pace: And I learned from my mistakes. So I think about the mistakes that I have made throughout my career that maybe set me back in certain places, but also learning from those mistakes and how it propelled me in the future. So I spend a lot of time actually working with other entrepreneurs as a mentor, and I have to remind them that you are going to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. It’s not a perfect journey. Life is messy, and being an entrepreneur is messy.
0:14:21 Andrew Pace: But you have to be able to embrace the mistakes, embrace the chaos sometimes and learn from it. And so I think looking back, that’s one thing I’m very happy about in my career, is that I never got down when things were going down. I always looked at it as an opportunity to improve the process, improve what I do, improve the message. And that has worked out well for me.
0:14:52 Tansy Rodgers: Me. And I think that the words that you just spoke are really the mantras of visionaries. That is what needs to happen. Allowing their entrepreneurship, their life, if you’re not an entrepreneur, to be messy and allowing the flaws and the mistakes, if you want to call them mistakes, not really. Right. But like, allowing that to come in, and that’s totally fine.
0:15:21 Andrew Pace: Oh, yeah. And just the same way, and I work with clients all over the world who are trying to build or remodel or design healthier homes. And I have to tell every one of my clients there is no such thing as A perfect project. Perfection is not possible. Life isn’t perfect. There is no such thing as living your life in a perfect manner with. You can look at somebody who on, on the, the surface it looks like everything is just swimmingly going well for them.
0:15:52 Andrew Pace: Underneath it could be chaos. And so understand that that’s the way we all operate and that’s the way all of our lives are. You have to again, embrace the chaos. Understand that it’s a learning experience and do something with it. Don’t just get down because things aren’t going well. Do something about it. You know, I remember in 2009, 2010, when we had the huge housing market crash and anybody like me who was in the building materials industry, people were going out of business left and right, not because they did anything wrong, but just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
0:16:35 Andrew Pace: And I remember having a discussion with other people in my company saying all we have to do is just move the ball forward a foot every single day. Just do something positive. And eventually that one little thing, positive starts to snowball into a whole vast array of positive improvements. But you have to start with the first one. And it may be difficult and it may seem like you’re not doing the thing, but you are moving the ball forward. So you always have to stay positive.
0:17:03 Tansy Rodgers: Yeah. All right, so you’re in the reflective stage right now, but I want to rewind a bit. Okay, let’s go back. What was a moment that really pulled you into this world of non toxic healthy home building? Maybe it was personal, professional, maybe a mix of both. But what made you so darn passionate to stick with this legacy, this mission that you’ve been on since 1992.
0:17:31 Andrew Pace: It actually was a project. So I, I got started in a family building, commercial building material supply company. This company was founded back in the 1930s. And so I grew up listening to my parents talking at the dinner table. Not about, you know, asking me how school was or how sports were doing, but hearing about architects and builders and construction. And so I gotta school. And I said, my mom and dad, I want to work for the family business. And they discouraged me. Like, no, go find your own way somewhere. Like, no, I really love this idea of working within this community.
0:18:10 Andrew Pace: And so that was 1989. In 1992, I was supplying materials for a large commercial project here in Wisconsin. And it was a liquid coating system for the parking garage of a large condominium complex. And it was a water based coating, like a water based paint. And so our, our crew started applying the product to the surfaces. And as the first coat started to cure, people started complaining. Like people living in the condos above were calling the job site trailer complaining of the strong chemical odors.
0:18:56 Andrew Pace: And I thought, well, that’s impossible. It’s water based. You know, there’s nothing wrong with it. And I don’t want to say we blew them off, but we didn’t think there was any problem. There’s nothing we could really do. Well, then it really hit home when three of our workers were rushed to the hospital due to inhalation complications. They couldn’t breathe. And I noticed it myself, but I didn’t have much of a problem with it or too big of a problem with it. These workers did and they had to be sent to the hospital because these water based coatings were restricting the oxygen in the space.
0:19:34 Andrew Pace: And I learned at a very young age, and very young in this business that building materials can be very dangerous for the users and the occupants. And that scared the daylights out of me. I was young, I was in my, you know, working for my family. And the thought of completely ruining a 60 year legacy of working in this space for our company, our family’s business, because of these products. And so I shut the job site down. We found a company in California called afm, American Formulated Manufacturing.
0:20:12 Andrew Pace: And they made coatings for people who had chemical sensitivities that are healthier. And I didn’t know anything about this at the time, but it fascinated me. Like there are products out there that are designed for people who have severe sensitivities that they can tolerate. Why don’t we all use them? Why would there be any other option? Right. It’s just, it makes perfect sense. And so I started learning more about chemical sensitivity, sick building syndrome, environmental illness.
0:20:42 Andrew Pace: And I quickly became fascinated with the idea of being able to provide what I call healthy, common sense building materials. So I started an offshoot of the family business called Green Design Center. And we focused almost predominantly on the health of the human occupant. Sure, we started working into energy efficient materials and sustainable recycled materials, but our main focus was always health of the human occupants.
0:21:16 Andrew Pace: And that was 1992. And we’ve been at it ever since.
0:21:21 Tansy Rodgers: Wow. And you know, I think so many people, either professionally or just home diyers, have no clue how toxic some of these chemicals and these materials actually are. And just think that it’s normal, think it’s totally normal that you’re smelling all the chemical when you’re painting or when you’re doing flooring work. Or whatever it is. Right. And so I also find it really interesting that there are so many people that I have known in my life, my uncle, I suspect my uncle being one of them, who developed either cancer or a disease based off of the work that they’re doing around these kind of materials. You know, he was a painter and his entire life was devoted to his entrepreneurship as a painter. I mean, he had his own business and so he was the, he was the main man doing the work. He was the only man, I think, doing the work at that point.
0:22:22 Tansy Rodgers: And he ended up at a young age, developed a cancer. And I just thought, this is so interesting. And when I started to understand, based off the work that I do in the holistic health world, when I start to understand the toxicity of our environment around us and the things that we choose to either clean our homes with, to bring into our house, like carpets and couches and all of that stuff, my goodness, I am not surprised.
0:22:54 Tansy Rodgers: I wouldn’t be surprised if, for example, his cancer was due primarily to his painting business.
0:23:03 Andrew Pace: Well, I can, you know, I’m not a medical professional, but in my anecdotal experience I can agree with you because the founder of afm, his name was Nestor no, Founded the company back in the early 80s. He was a paint chemist. He developed cancer himself working in the paint industry. And he decided at that point, my mission for the rest of my life, however short it’s going to be, my mission is to create toxin free, hazard free formulations for paints and finishes so that people don’t run into this problem anymore. And so that’s what he did. He developed hundreds of formulations for paints and coatings and stains and finishes and adhesives and all these things that we use in our home that are free of what are called a hazardous air pollutants or cancer causing materials.
0:24:04 Andrew Pace: And that’s what he did. And so his formulations are what AFM still use to this day. Now, regarding all the building materials in our home, understand that There are approximately 92,000 synthetic chemicals that have been approved to be used in the United States in our building materials in our home, goods in our foods, you name it. 92,000 chemicals, different chemicals. Out of those 92,000 chemicals, we actually only know the toxicological effects of about 3%.
0:24:45 Andrew Pace: We have no idea what the other 80 some thousand chemicals are doing to the human body. We don’t have any clue how they interact with one another once they’re in your home and create new chemical compounds we’ve never heard of. It’s Kind of like would you go to a doctor who would just prescribe pill after pill after pill without looking at what you’re taking already and see how they counteract each other or interact with one another. But this is what we do on a daily basis. We bring something new into the home.
0:25:13 Andrew Pace: We have no idea how it reacts with other things that are already there. And so I guess the third point here is we all assume. I’m not sure why, but we all assume that if it’s allowed for sale, that it must be safe. Like as if the government is protecting us. You know, understand that most of the. All the chemicals that are used, that are allowed to be used in the U.S. are essentially approved by the EPA for use. Right.
0:25:48 Andrew Pace: The EPA is not the HPA. They’re the environmental Protection Agency, not the Human Protection Agency. They really could care less about the human occupants. They care more about the outdoor air and the soil and the water, which, of course are important. I have no problem with that. But we cannot be lulled into the sense of security that, well, if the EPA says it’s okay or the FDA says it’s okay, that it’s good for us, that’s not the case.
0:26:14 Andrew Pace: They allow certain levels of toxins, certain levels of poisons to be used, and because it’s at such a low level, they say it doesn’t really matter. Well, if you have 200 items in your house that all have low levels, that toxic soup is created. So that’s why we have to be more aware of what we’re using and really take these matters into our own hands and not wait for some regulation to come up because it never will.
0:26:42 Tansy Rodgers: Yeah, it’s that toxic load. You know, as you were talking, I even thought to you, somebody may have or use a building material, a paint, whatever it is, that is a low level according to the epa. However, if they are at the same time using toiletries that have a higher toxic load, if they’re eating foods that have toxins in them or that are highly processed and their body is not able to break that stuff down, and maybe their detoxification pathways within their body is not allowing the stuff to move through, through it. Well, now, like you said, we really got some toxic soup going on and that low level is going to really make an impact.
0:27:27 Andrew Pace: Right? Yeah. The level that was arbitrarily created is not what we need as humans to be following. We should be following how do we feel. And the very best physicians I’ve ever had over the years have always, always ask me how do you feel they’re not looking at necessarily at test results to tell them the entire story? They’re looking at a variety of things. And functional medicine is to look at the whole person. It’s a holistic approach to healthcare and not just looking at some test results. So we can give you a pill in the building industry by using certain materials will not necessarily make your home healthy. You have to look at it from a holistic approach.
0:28:12 Tansy Rodgers: Yeah.
0:28:14 Tansy Rodgers: Which I want to talk about.
0:28:16 Tansy Rodgers: Some of the details in wording here in just a moment. But before we get into that, I’m curious. So say somebody does bring in some of these toxic chemicals that they are using to build their home, to remodel their home that they either know are a higher toxin load or maybe they have no clue. How long does it typically take for some of these hazardous chemicals and toxins to leave the home or to not affect the body?
0:28:46 Tansy Rodgers: Is there any way of knowing that?
0:28:49 Andrew Pace: So there are air tests you can do or air sampling tests to show how long certain chemicals will release from a surface. So there’s a. We have to kind of get into the terminology a bit here. I think all of us have heard the term voc. When you go into a hardware store to buy paint, for instance, the manufacturers are touting low VOC or zero voc. What a VOC is, is a volatile organic compound. Sounds horrible, I know, but what it really means is any carbon based molecule that’s readily vaporized at room temperature, that could rise to the upper atmosphere, react with UV and nitrogen and create low level smog.
0:29:39 Andrew Pace: So that’s the EPA definition of a voc. Keep in mind, this would include things like toluene and benzene, really nasty solvents and chemicals that are found in some paints and coatings. But it also includes things like orange oil. You peel the skin off of an orange, you’re releasing 850 grams per liter of VOCs. That doesn’t necessarily make it dangerous for humans, but the EPA says that a lot of these, most of these carbon based chemicals that could rise to the upper atmosphere are deemed VOCs. So manufacturers are taking them out of their products so they can meet the EPA registrations or regulations and not get fined.
0:30:22 Andrew Pace: What most manufacturers do though, is they replace the VOCs with other chemicals that are not VOCs that might be as dangerous or more dangerous. And now they get around that and they can sell their products. And so it’s a very difficult process for us as consumers to figure out what we should use. But back to your original question. How long do they last? Well, VOCs that emanate from something like a paint or a coating or some liquid applied material in your home can off gas typically anywhere from three to five years once they reach a full cure.
0:30:58 Andrew Pace: VOCs and other chemicals like formaldehyde, which is used extensively throughout building materials, can off gas for 30 to 50 years. And so there is no like perfectly safe point with a lot of this stuff. All we can do is utilize materials that either don’t off gas, that don’t have these toxic ingredients at the beginning, or we have to employ the use of good air purification ventilation in a home so that the tolerable point, and that’s at what point can you move into that home and it doesn’t really affect your health. Everybody’s going to be different, of course, but that that point of toleration is sooner rather than later because you have good ventilation and good air purification.
0:31:57 Andrew Pace: And so you have to remember that in the construction industry in the last 15, 20 years, we’ve really pushed for tighter and tighter homes because of energy codes, because of the environmental push for using less fossil fuels and being more eco friendly. The unintended consequence of that is our homes are tighter and tighter and becoming actually less safe than they were 20 years ago. So we have to use healthier materials to begin with and then make sure we have really good ventilation and air purification in our homes.
0:32:37 Tansy Rodgers: Wow, you just blew my mind. I didn’t realize that the off gassing was that extensive. Wow.
0:32:47 Tansy Rodgers: Let’s talk about hidden stressors just for a moment. You can clean up your air, ditch the toxic paint, swap out the couch foam, but if your gut is still inflamed, your body’s going to keep whispering symptoms or maybe your gut’s gonna start to yell them. That’s why I just love Just Thrive probiotics. Probiotics, it’s spore based, which means it survives your digestive system and actually gets to the gut where it can do its magic.
0:33:17 Tansy Rodgers: It’s one of the few probiotics that I have ever seen that actually support gut lining repair, immune strength and even mental clarity. Because yes, your gut and brain are having full on conversations all day and you need to be able to support that conversation. When your home is cleaner, your gut is calmer. That’s when the true healing begins. Just Thrive is the probiotic that I trust, that I use and that I also recommend out to my clients.
0:33:52 Tansy Rodgers: You can head down to the Show Notes and grab [email protected] by clicking on the link in the show notes. And if you, you use code TANSY15, you’ll get 15 off your entire order. Head down to the show notes, click that link, and make sure to use code TANSY15 for 15 off. Here’s to a happy, healthier gut.
0:34:18 Tansy Rodgers: All right, so let’s, let’s break it down a little bit because I feel, you know, I. I’m in this whole holistic world pretty deep. This is my life, this is my passion, this is my excitement, this. But even I can get a little bit duped at times by wording. Right. I think we all can because marketing is so tricky sometimes. Let’s talk about what green versus non toxic is, because they aren’t the same thing, right?
0:34:47 Andrew Pace: That’s a great question. I love that question.
0:34:51 Tansy Rodgers: Yeah, let’s talk about this.
0:34:52 Andrew Pace: Okay, so let’s say you walk into a home improvement center and you, the average person who hasn’t taken that deep dive into healthy the way, you know, we have, and you are doing and others are doing. But let’s say the average person walks into a home improvement center and they’re looking for materials and they see products that are targeted as eco friendly, green, environmentally friendly, air safe, all these buzzwords.
0:35:28 Andrew Pace: The average person is going to look at that and say, well, that means that’s safe for me. So I should probably use those because that’s eco friendly. But these are what are called greenwashing terms. Greenwashing is kind of like the idea of whitewashing wood where you kind of give it a whitish look to it, but, you know, it’s what underneath. Greenwashing is the same thing. You use all these words to make people believe that it’s something that it isn’t.
0:35:56 Andrew Pace: So if a product has a high recycled content, let’s say it’s a carpeting, for instance, you can buy carpeting today that has a very high recycled plastic content, which is actually really good for the environment because you’re taking plastic out of the waste stream, taking plastics out of the oceans. You’re processing it so you can use it into something else because it never really degrades. Every ounce of plastic that has ever been manufactured since it was invented still exists because it doesn’t go away. It’s still there.
0:36:31 Andrew Pace: It doesn’t biodegrade, so you’re reusing it. And that’s environmentally friendly. Is it healthy for the occupants who’s using it? No, because it’s still plastic. It’s still releasing microplastics that we absorb into our skin. Inhale, consume. There’s A lot of toxicity in the production of the carpet, into the cleaning of the recycled materials, into the shipping of the products around the world. And the way carpet is manufactured, it can release chemicals in your home for 30 to 50 years.
0:37:09 Andrew Pace: So is it human friendly? No, it’s not. It’s environmentally friendly, but it’s not human friendly. So let’s compare, for instance, then natural carpeting. There’s a lot of manufacturers of natural wool carpet, sheep’s wool that is cleaned and maybe dyed using vegetable dyes. Very, very safe process. It’s woven into a hemp and jute backing. All 100% natural. Uses natural latex, right from the rubber tree. There’s no plastics.
0:37:48 Andrew Pace: This is a 100% natural wool carpet. That’s healthier for the occupants because there’s no synthetic chemicals coming off carpeting. Of course, if you have wool sensitivities, you know, we have to talk about that. But let’s, let’s keep, you know, table that for a second. So let’s compare 100% recycled carpet versus 100% natural carpet. Which one is more eco friendly? You’d argue the recycled carpet, right?
0:38:19 Andrew Pace: Well, understand that the natural carpet, once it’s done with its useful lifespan in your home, you can actually grind it up and use it as fertilizer in a farm field. It can go back to the earth. So it really is eco friendly as well. And so, so this is where it’s tough as a consumer in walking into a home improvement center and looking for things that are green or eco friendly, you have to consider, is it human friendly first?
0:38:47 Andrew Pace: My personal motto in this business for 30 years has been, what good does it do saving the environment if we’re still poisoning the occupants? And I use that as my mantra. I use that as my litmus test for any new product that gets presented to me. But is it safe for us humans? If it’s safe for us humans, by definition, it’s environmentally friendly. If it’s environmentally friendly, it’s not necessarily safe for humans.
0:39:16 Andrew Pace: Now, I mentioned this before, tabling the whole concept of the natural wool. If you have wool sensitivities, understand that also something being deemed as natural can also be a buzzword, right? Understand that asbestos is natural, arsenic is natural, tobacco is natural. Just because it’s natural does not necessarily tell you it’s safe. So we have to be more mindful of, okay, so it’s natural, but then what?
0:39:48 Andrew Pace: And so as consumers, we’re being forced to be more knowledgeable about this. We almost have to be detectives and chemists. I’m trying to make that easier for my clients so that I do that work. And then I present you with the facts without emotion. It is, here’s the good, the bad and the ugly about a product. You, the consumer, I’ve given you all the tools. You make your own decision, but I’ll give you every tool you need in order to make the right decision.
0:40:22 Tansy Rodgers: You know, as you were talking, all I kept thinking was what we really need to do is just stop using plastics and other environmental practices that are not sustainable is really what it comes down to. Because you’re absolutely right. You’re absolutely right. You know, if we’re using these products that are eco friendly, that is great, that we’re finding ways to repurpose, if that’s the right word, plastics.
0:40:47 Tansy Rodgers: Right. But in the same breath, at the expense of what, at the expense of our own health. And then it just really comes down to why do we have so much plastic? Why have we not taken more non toxic green methods that don’t use this waste that’s going to last and never actually break down?
0:41:10 Andrew Pace: Well, again, a lot of these ideas and a lot of materials that came out, there are good intentions behind it. And I mentioned this before, it’s the unintended consequence of trying to do the right thing. Understand that we’ve been in this situation in our homes since the 60s for the most part. You know, homes built in the 50s and earlier. Yes, you had lead paint, okay, yes, you had asbestos in some of our building materials, but you didn’t have plastics.
0:41:44 Andrew Pace: Plastics changed the equation of everything. Because once plastics were invented and then started to proliferate through all, all of life, what happened was in the building industry, plastics started to be using on materials that we build our homes with. And plastics don’t have breathability. And what I mean by breathability is it doesn’t allow moisture to transmit through it. So think of your home, the walls in your home, it used to be 100 years ago here in the US your walls were built essentially with wood and plaster and maybe some type of a siding material, brick, stone.
0:42:26 Andrew Pace: Asbestos siding was used back then because of its insulated properties and its durability. But those walls were built with all natural materials that naturally would be allowed to breathe moisture. They also didn’t really have great technologies in construction. So there are a lot of air gaps in the walls around windows. And that’s why those old feel drafty, because you can feel the air coming in. Throughout the 60s and the 70s, the 70s especially because of the OPEC oil embargo of the early 70s and builders and architects started focusing on how do we tighten up our homes to be less energy hogs, more energy efficient.
0:43:09 Andrew Pace: So now all those little gaps started getting filled in with plastics. And so it makes our homes more energy efficient. But because we now don’t have that natural airflow into the home from the outside, because we don’t have the ability for any moisture to get out of the walls, you have moisture being stuck in the walls that can lead to a mold problem. And you have less natural air coming into the home, which leads to health issues amongst the people living in the homes. And so this has been problematic for the last 50 years.
0:43:47 Andrew Pace: And in the mid-2000s, when the energy codes and building materials in buildings really ramped up because of this push to eliminate the use of fossil fuels and at least lower the use of fossil fuels, it took a while for the industry to say, but wait a second, people live in these houses. These houses might be really high, high performing and they meet all these energy codes and it costs you $10 a month to heat your house. But people still have to live in these houses. They can’t breathe.
0:44:25 Andrew Pace: And so now the unintended consequence of trying to do that right thing is causing health issues in the home. So it’s the desire for the industry to accommodate people’s wants of, of more energy efficiency, better performance, cheaper, faster building materials, because plastics are less expensive to produce than it is to actually create something out of a natural material. And so cheaper, faster, better performing, lower energy.
0:44:58 Andrew Pace: All this culminates into a toxic home. And so we are trying to now erase that and bring our homes back to where they were 100 years ago, which were a lot healthier for the occupants, but without those issues of lead and asbestos and those materials and without the free flow of air through the walls, because that led to energy issues. So it’s the fine balance of how do we build these homes, better performing, but with lower toxin load.
0:45:36 Andrew Pace: And we’re trying to undo 50, 60 years of this process and it’s going to take a while.
0:45:43 Tansy Rodgers: That’s fascinating. Yeah. Never thought about plastic. I mean, I know plastics aren’t breathable, but never thought about that when it came to the building materials. And so you touched on something that. I would love to just ask this now because I’m really curious. You know, I know in the health world especially, and the work that I do, one of the biggest constraints that I find is often people can’t always afford the things that are better for them because it Just it costs more money to either produce or to gain those materials to make said product.
0:46:22 Tansy Rodgers: Right. And so how do you help people really start to balance the health, the sustainability, the cost so they can make better choices and still get some of these toxins out of their home building supplies?
0:46:40 Andrew Pace: It’s a tough question to answer because in the building materials industry it’s pretty well established that you get what you pay for. There are exceptions. You know, you get these name brands, you know, if somebody like a, you know, Martha Stewart or Ralph Lauren comes out with their own name branded paint, it’s going to cost more because they’re paying the licensing fees for it to have that name on the can.
0:47:05 Andrew Pace: But if you look at a gallon of paint that’s $80 and a gallon of paint that’s $20, the $80 gallon of paint is going to be a better product from the standpoint of longevity durability application. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any healthier than the $20 paint. It could be actually worse. So you’d know a lot about like personal care items, right? So I actually did testing years ago and for a client who had severe chemical sensitivity and she wanted me to test various nail polishes.
0:47:40 Andrew Pace: And so I do a very, very exclusive type of test called a formaldehyde release test where I can test the formaldehyde that comes off of a cured surface. And I tested five different types of nail polish. And contrary to what you would think, the most expensive nail polish released the most amount of formaldehyde, not the opposite. And that’s because formaldehyde actually does some things in the curing process, makes the nail polish harder, more durable, longer lasting.
0:48:14 Andrew Pace: So you have to be careful with that. So I think we all believe that healthy building materials cost more than unhealthy building materials. But in actuality, what it really is is that better quality, more durable, more long lasting building materials cost more than the cheaper, faster made products. It just so happens that a lot of these better made products are actually healthier. So I believe it’s kind of an illusion to believe that to build healthier is going to be more expensive.
0:48:47 Andrew Pace: You have to compare apples to apples, quality level to quality level level. If you buy a tract house from some giant production home builder, there’s not a lot of good quality building materials in that house. And you’re going to run start running into problems at the three to five year mark in that house. If you design a custom home with a custom home builder and an architect and it’s going to last 120 years, it’s going to cost more per square foot than that trek home.
0:49:17 Andrew Pace: But just because it’s more expensive or it’s because of the quality level and so forth. A healthy home isn’t always more expensive than that low quality home, but a quality home is. And so that’s just, we have to get around that illusion when it comes to our personal lives within a home. Is it more expensive to buy organic versus traditionally harvested produce? Yes, it is. But then factor in other things like, well, after a period of time, am I spending less on healthcare, am I getting better quality sleep?
0:49:58 Andrew Pace: Is my quality of life better than it was a year ago? And once you start factoring in all of those things, I can make the argument that surrounding ourselves with healthier materials that are better for us personally ultimately is cost savings and, or improves our production of what we do for a living because we have better capacity for thinking and processing information. Therefore we’re just better at what we do.
0:50:32 Andrew Pace: So all that has to be factored in. If we just look at price of product A, price of product B, you have to factor in all those other ancillary things that make up the pricing. And so I think we will all see that healthy homes will improve our quality of life and actually be about the same price as an unhealthy home.
0:50:52 Tansy Rodgers: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. The upfront cost I think is always the delusion or always the illusion. And that’s either in the homes that you’re, you know, the materials that you are choosing for your homes, the foods that you’re choosing to buy and eat, the toiletries that you’re choosing to put onto your body. Even you know, if you think about it, when we talk about like the eco friendly, the example that you gave about the eco friendly with the plastics and the carpet, you’re, you’re still, you’re still buying the lower cost, potentially lower cost item because, because you think that it is going to be better for you when in reality it can up your health bills, lower your quality of life.
0:51:39 Tansy Rodgers: So yeah, I really think that you’re absolutely spot on there. It’s really the illusion of the upfront cost that I think so many people balk at.
0:51:49 Andrew Pace: And so to that point, exactly, comparing plastic, synthetic, recycled carpet, let’s say it costs $5 per square foot, the chemical free wool carpet is $10 a square foot. Let’s just make it easy math for everybody. So yeah, the wool carpet is twice as much as a synthetic carpet. However, synthetic carpet is designed by the manufacturers to last about 15 years before it just needs to be replaced because you can’t clean it anymore. It starts to crush and break down.
0:52:25 Andrew Pace: Or, you know, the next person buys the house and says, this carpet looks lousy, I’m replacing it with something else. The average lifespan of carpet in this country is about 15 years. Wool carpeting. The lifespan of wool carpeting is about 60 to 80 years. So, okay, you spent twice as much for that carpeting, but now in 80 years, you’re still with the same carpet. That house can be sold for a higher value amount because you can tell potential buyers, we use wool carpeting. You’re never gonna have to switch this out, at least in your lifetime.
0:53:00 Andrew Pace: So there is value to that. A lot of this thought process comes to us from other parts of the world where they just don’t remodel their homes as much, or homes are kept within a family for generations. So I know we hear this sort of anecdotally, oh, I wish we did things like year. You know, they do things better in Europe. Well, they do a lot of things better. Not because they want to do them better, just because that’s how they do it. You know, a home is passed on from generation to generation.
0:53:31 Andrew Pace: So when they install wool carpet in a home, they know it’s going to last 80 years, and so they want to do it one and done. They’re not as concerned about aesthetic. They’re not as concerned about, you know, how does it look compared to the neighbor’s house? Is it functional? Is it a good investment? And here we do things differently. It’s a very throwaway society here, and we always want to keep up with the trends and the times, and it has to look like what, you know, Joanna Gaines is promoting on hgtv.
0:54:01 Andrew Pace: We need to be more pragmatic about our purchases and understand that products that are designed to last longer might cost more, but in the long run, they’re far less expensive.
0:54:12 Tansy Rodgers: Yeah, I want to go back to what you were talking. You brought up that you worked with somebody about the chemical sensitivity that she had, specifically in regards to the nail polish. But I want to talk a little bit more about these chemical sensitivities, chronic illnesses, these environmental overwhelms. What are the first, maybe two to three changes that you would suggest for somebody who’s just starting their journey towards a healthier home and is already noticing that they have this reaction to chemicals and they may be a little bit more chemically sensitive?
0:54:49 Andrew Pace: So there’s three quick and easy things you can do immediately, and one is and people talk about this all the time and maybe practice it, but you have to be kind of religious about it. Make sure you take your shoes off at the door. Don’t walk with your outside shoes all around inside of your house because what you’re bringing into the house is typically things like pesticides, fertilizers, whatever your shoes walk over, whether it’s gasoline or diesel fuel at the gas station, whatever cleaning materials were used at the grocery store and the floors, you’re bringing everybody else’s junk inside of your house. So take your shoes off at the door.
0:55:31 Andrew Pace: And we’re not even talking about bacteria and mold. I don’t want to really scare people away, so. But that’s the first thing you can do. The second thing you do is change all of your indoor cleaning materials over to healthier, safer materials. You don’t have to go out to a store and buy something. You can, you can, you know, Google search for healthy household cleaning materials and you can make your own out of things like baking soda and vinegar.
0:55:57 Andrew Pace: Very simple, very easy. Or you can go to even. Target now sells Branch Basics, which is about one of the safest, healthiest, all purpose cleaning materials you’ll ever find. It was actually designed by people who have chemical sensitivity. So that’s a very, you know, one little expense you could do. So you have take your shoes off, you have use healthier cleaning materials around your house. Whether you buy it or make it. The third thing is what you surround your skin with. Your skin is the largest organ of your body.
0:56:36 Andrew Pace: Anything you put onto your skin will absorb into your blood system. So I’m talking about your clothing and whatever you use for washing, for bathing, for showering. Make sure you’re using materials, especially if you’re chemically sensitive, that do not have chemical emissions or leave a film that could cause a reaction. Whether it’s a skin reaction or it’s something more neurological. I myself have a chemical sensitivity to certain types of antimicrobials as well as other chemicals. So if I come across, if I use a soap, for instance, that has these antimicrobials, I’ll start to break out in a rash pretty quickly.
0:57:20 Andrew Pace: That’s a chemical sensitivity. Walking into a department store, if you’re the type of person that avoids the perfume in cologne aisle because you know it gives you a headache. That’s because it’s a chemical sensitivity. You don’t have to be the boy in the plastic bubble sick in order to have a chemical sensitivity. These aversions that people have to perfume cologne to strong cleaning agents, to even to paint, for instance, that cause headaches, that cause maybe vision changes, flu like symptoms. These are all chemical sensitivities.
0:57:58 Andrew Pace: And that’s our body’s telling us get away from this location, you know, get outside and get fresh air, things of that nature. So people who have what’s called multiple chemical sensitivity, MCS is where you have these types of reactions to a variety of petrochemically related materials. And you can react to all these different things on a daily basis. And so these are like our canaries in the mine shaft. You know, folks with MCS are telling us our built environment is problematic and we all should be aware of this.
0:58:37 Andrew Pace: But they react at very, very small levels to a variety of chemicals. And the reactions can be anywhere from again and headaches and flu like symptoms, all the way up to anaphylactic shock. And so I’ve been working within the community of chemical sensitivity for the last 30 plus years. And I can tell you that while the amount of people is still the same, it’s roughly 25% of the population has a chemical sensitivity, whether they know it or not.
0:59:09 Andrew Pace: A lot of research has been going into mold in the last 10 years because of the genetic testing that can show US that about 25% of the population has a predisposition to have mold sensitivity to the point that it can cause serious health issues like chronic inflammatory response, all the way up to Parkinson’s and als. This is now being researched. It’s the same customer, it’s the same person. People who have mold sensitivity generally have chemical sensitivity and vice versa.
0:59:48 Tansy Rodgers: And so for those, I will also say too that the more you start taking things out, these heavy chemicals, and you start to clear your system out, the more you realize how sensitive you are to chemicals that come into your path. And so, so some people may say that that is a terrible thing, but that is actually really great because you’re clearing your system out and you are allowing yourself to really understand what is toxic and what your body can speak better.
1:00:17 Andrew Pace: Well and understand that the brain is very powerful. And let’s say you had a reaction to a chemical at 100% strength and you take that chemical away from your environments. The brain is always in protective mode. The brain is always searching for what caused that reaction originally. And if it senses 1% of that chemical now in a space, you’re going to react. You know, your limbic system or the adrenaline response causes that fight or flight reaction.
1:01:00 Andrew Pace: And so it’s somehow very often difficult for people who have chemical Sensitivities to ever be in a situation where they’re completely cured of it. I don’t think there’s any such thing as being cured from chemical sensitivity. You always have it, but you just know how to manage it better and you understand whether you’ve gone through, you know, a primal trust program or a DNRS dynamic no over training.
1:01:28 Andrew Pace: And you’ve basically rewired your limbic system so that it doesn’t always react at severe levels to very low levels of poison, but it’s your body telling you there’s something wrong here. It’s not going to hurt you, but you might want to get away.
1:01:45 Tansy Rodgers: Yeah. What are some of the biggest heavy hitters when it comes to remodeling and building? You’ve already mentioned carpet, so I’m sure that that’s one of them. But when, when people are looking to remodel their home or looking to build a home, what are some of the biggest heavy hitters that make a big difference in what they choose?
1:02:10 Andrew Pace: 90% of the chemical off gassing or potential chemical off gassing that you’ll find in the home once you’re moving in there. Much you have moved in there is going to come from the things you see and touch on a daily basis. All right, your flooring materials. Yes, carpeting is your number one offender in the home. I always recommend stay away from carpeting unless you’re doing the 100% natural synthetic free carpets.
1:02:35 Andrew Pace: But even wood floors, the finishes on wood floors, the luxury vinyl planks that are out there now, Just about any floor material can have potential chemical off gassing, but it’s a large expanse in your home. So that’s usually number one. Number two are the painted finishes. We talked about paints and coatings that can off gas for three to five years. There are coatings that are completely free of chemical off gassing. So that’s what I look for.
1:02:59 Andrew Pace: Number three in the home is going to be all of your woodwork. Your cabinetry, your painted doors, your painted woodwork. Because of the finishes that are used and because of the engineered woods that can release formaldehyde for a very long period of time. And the fourth largest contributor to unhealthy air inside of the home from a chemical standpoint will be your own personal furnishings. So your window treatments, your area rugs. I think we all forget about area rugs, but they can be extremely toxic.
1:03:31 Andrew Pace: Your furniture, your own clothing, things of that nature. So floors and walls, cabinetry and furnishes are the four areas that you need to be Most concerned about when it comes to chemical off gassing. The last 10% of that off gassing will come from things that you never see. What’s behind the wall above the, above the ceilings, insulation, caulking materials, adhesives, things that were used throughout the building process, but again are hidden once the home is built in. That last 10%, however, is where we also now start to consider ourselves with mold.
1:04:11 Andrew Pace: These are not chemical emissions, although they do create their own emissions. But it’s more of what’s called a MVOC or a mold volatile. This is where we have to be very concerned about using building materials and methods that either completely eliminate the possibility of mold growth or at least deter it as much as possible. So when I’m involved in a construction project, from design all the way up through move in, I talk at length with the design team about using materials that are less likely to ever develop mold problems.
1:04:50 Andrew Pace: Using systems inside of the home that eliminate mold within the walls, within the space. And I’m talking about materials that we use that do not have chemical emissions. So it really is again that holistic approach to the indoor air quality. Quality.
1:05:06 Tansy Rodgers: Wow. Yeah. I never even thought about the caulking and, and the, the other supplies that make up that 10%. That’s so fascinating.
1:05:18 Andrew Pace: Yeah. And there are things like plumbing materials that have used adhesives. I’ve actually done a lot of work on new homes that people bring me into to sort of assess after the fact because they realize that people are getting sick in the homes. And now families are like, now what do we do? We just bought our, the largest investment we’ll ever have in our life. We can’t sell the home because we’ll, we’ll lose so much.
1:05:43 Andrew Pace: So we have to stay in this home. What do we do? And so I’ll be brought in to sort of help assess where the problems are, what can be fixed. And I’ve noticed this trend especially in for like these green home builders, the ones who build really energy efficient their homes can be just as or even more toxic because of all the things that are done in the last few weeks of construction right before the family moves in.
1:06:08 Andrew Pace: It’s what’s called the punch list items. Well, we forgot to caulk that window. We gotta caulk that. We’ve gotta finish the adhesive work over here. We gotta finish the flooring, finish the painting, do tape, paint touch ups. All these liquids being used in the very last part of construction that take a while to cure and then get off gas for a long Period of time. And then the family moves in. You know, the day after all that work was done, they move in. And you wonder why everybody in the household gets sick.
1:06:35 Andrew Pace: It used to be that people and people still kind of think, well, there’s a lot of stress involved in a family making a move and they all feel run down and therefore their immune system is down and they’re just susceptible to whatever bugs going around. What’s really happening is we’re being inundated with all these chemicals. And our immune system may be down because of the stress and anxiety, but it’s the chemical that’s actually causing or triggering this feeling of like everybody in the house gets the flu.
1:07:05 Andrew Pace: And that can linger for a very long period of time to the point where we’ve actually had some families have to move out of these new homes until we can somewhat mitigate it and they can move back in. So this does occur on a very regular basis. And I think Most of us, 75% of the population, can just kind of brush this off because our immune systems are strong enough to deal with it. But for that 25%, and especially for young kids or elderly persons, the immune system isn’t strong enough and we have to be much more careful.
1:07:42 Tansy Rodgers: If today’s episode has you rethinking what’s hiding in your walls, your floors, or even your air ducts, you’re not alone. Mold vocs and hidden toxins are way more common than we’d like to think. That’s why I wanted to highlight in this episode Superstratum, a smart science backed option for people looking to prevent mold in a non toxic bio based way. It’s used by healthy building experts and is a great tool to your home toolkit, especially if you’re dealing with past water damage or want extra protection during remodeling.
1:08:21 Tansy Rodgers: Mold is a huge health hazard and it is something that you don’t want to mess with. And sometimes you can’t even see that mold. Sometimes it’s the mycotoxins that are hiding in the air that you can’t see. So smell or touch. So if you want to make sure that you are cleaning out your home, you’re clearing out your home and you’re also getting it ready for that new remodeling. Head on down into the show notes. Click the link for super stratum and go ahead and fill that shopping cart with just the foundational pieces to get yourself started and to get your home mold free.
1:09:04 Tansy Rodgers: What about renters? So as you were talking, I mean, that was what was popping in my head, what about individuals that are renting outside of moving and finding a new home? They can’t rip things out necessarily. They can’t repaint, most likely. And if there is something going on, the landlord may put whatever it is that they want to put in, which probably is something more toxic, most likely. What, what’s your suggestion there?
1:09:35 Andrew Pace: So I do a lot of work with renters and there’s a couple of things we look at. First of all, you don’t want to move into a space that was just remodeled right before they offered it up for rent. I would rather go to. If there’s a certain apartment complex, as you like, a certain area that you like, you might want to contact beforehand the those in charge and say if there’s a unit coming up and they’re not going to renew their lease, can you let me know because I might want to look at it before you do your fix ups, before you shampoo the carpet and before you paint the walls because maybe I will rent this without that being done.
1:10:24 Andrew Pace: Again. Understand that paint off gases for three to five years. So if somebody had been living there for three to five years or even a year, that’s better than having it just repainted and you’re forced to move into it because I know they’re not going to use safer paints. Landlords are all about being cost conscious and it’s how little can we spend to get this back into rentable condition. So let’s look for something that either doesn’t need to be cleaned or you can negotiate with the landlord.
1:11:01 Andrew Pace: You also want to employ the use of good air purification. So in any renting situation, even in a home, I would recommend at least a really good air purifier and use it in the bedroom first. The bedroom needs to be the healthiest room of the entire apartment or house. We try to spend six to eight hours a night getting that good quality restorative sleep. If we’re forced to breathe in the air in that space, let’s make sure it’s purified, it’s cleaned and so that will help.
1:11:37 Andrew Pace: So those two things. And then of course you have to look at, if you’re mold sensitive, you know, you have to look at the telltale signs is any water damage, you know, underneath the windows, underneath the, the kitchen sink or the bathroom sink. And so we have to be a little more diligent about that. But I, I say being more proactive in talking with the landlords and you’ll sense which ones are a bit more amenable to. To what you’re talking about, especially if it’s a unit that maybe they have a lot of people, a lot of open units that they’re trying to rent out.
1:12:11 Andrew Pace: Maybe they’ll be willing to work with you a bit more because they just need that income. So you have to be a little more creative because as you said, when you’re renting, you really don’t have the opportunity to use all your own materials to make it a healthier space. You really have to work with the landlord.
1:12:28 Tansy Rodgers: Yeah, I actually have an air purifier in my bedroom, and that was that. And that was by far one of the best things that I’ve done, because I can tell just based off of when that is running and based off of what I can see on the screen, when there is something that is more toxic in the air that I might not even be able to tell or smell, but I can see that screen and I know what’s going on, and I can try to open up windows if I can, or clear things out. So I.
1:13:01 Tansy Rodgers: So that is a fantastic tip and definitely one that I have found to be really helpful.
1:13:08 Andrew Pace: Yeah. And using data. I think people misuse data a lot, and of course, you can interpret it many different ways, but data is good from the standpoint of that you can use it to reduce anxiety. And anybody who has a chemical sensitivity, a mold sensitivity, understand that. Anxiety, again, kind of puts you into that. That adrenaline release, that fight or flight response. And so we’re always trying to manage that.
1:13:41 Andrew Pace: And if we can look at a screen, if you have an air purifier that shows you what your PM2.5 level is, which is the small particles that are typically what we’re trying to take out of the air. And you see it’s in the good range. That’s just good for your peace of mind and looking at that to say, all right, we’re doing well today. You know, this is taking care of it. If you didn’t have that data, you’re constantly fighting this worry of, what if it’s too high?
1:14:11 Andrew Pace: What am I sensing? Is that what it is? Could it be something else? You can. You can never get into a comfort zone. You’re always anxious. And if you’re always anxious, the triggers of things that could cause a reaction are always much easier, much quicker. So we have to keep our anxiety down, keep that adrenaline down. And again, looking at a screen that tells you where we’re at just helps with that.
1:14:38 Tansy Rodgers: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you talk about something called the H Value healthy value engineering. Can you explain what that means and what it might be for the future of remodeling?
1:14:52 Andrew Pace: So in the construction industry there is a term called value engineering. And it sounds so important, but what it really means is if you had $100,000 budget to redo the kitchen in this beautiful home. And $100,000 is a lot of money, but it’s, you know, the cost of remodeling a very large kitchen. But let’s say the contractor gets all of his bids from the subs and the suppliers in the project comes at $120,000.
1:15:21 Andrew Pace: The homeowner says, I just cannot afford this. The max budget is $100,000. The contractor says, well, I can value engineer this. What that means is I can find materials that will be less expensive to bring down the cost, but it still manages to to appease the intent of the project. So I may not afford be able to afford the top of the line Wolf and sub zero refrigeration and cooking package at $30,000.
1:15:57 Andrew Pace: Maybe I can go with a brand like Z line and it’ll only be $15,000. So I’ve saved $15,000. That’s what’s called value engineering. I’ll give you what you want. It might be a different brand, but it’ll achieve the look that you were going for. H Value engineering is what I call health Value engineering. What this is, let’s say we have same budget and we’re still $20,000 over budget. What I do is I look at the materials that are proposed and say, well, you don’t really need this if your goal is healthy homes and a healthy space.
1:16:43 Andrew Pace: What I want to do is shift the dollars from materials that are not going to either improve or reduce the indoor air quality. I want to shift those dollars to products and materials and systems that will improve the indoor air quality, will improve the health of the occupants because the other stuff is just kind of flat fluff. And so I’ll give you example of building a brand new home and the cost of doing this beautiful metal roofing system is, is $50,000.
1:17:18 Andrew Pace: I could do an asphalt shingle roof for $20,000. Am I going to get an improvement of health that will justify that extra amount for the metal roof? No. Because inside of the home, the roofing material ultimately has nothing to do with indoor air quality. If everything is constructed properly and proper ventilation, whatever you use up in your roof will not impact the occupants of the home. It may look nicer, it may last longer. Yes.
1:17:47 Andrew Pace: But if the true Goal is health of the occupant. You may find that that $30,000 that you saved on the roofing material can now be shifted to something else inside of the home, like the more expensive wool carpeting, the more expensive paints, the more expensive cabinetry that are healthier for the occupants. So that’s what I call H value engineering. It’s shifting those dollars to things that will improve the indoor air quality away from those items that really have no impact.
1:18:16 Tansy Rodgers: Oh, I love that. I love that. Okay, so you’re working with the H value, you’re shifting the dollars. You’re bringing the value, the health value, more indoors, quote, unquote. Right. You built the healthy home. How are you furnishing it? Say you’re taking some of that H value dollar savings. Right. How are you. What are some of your tips to really make sure that the furniture, the decor is not undoing all of this healing work that you have that you’re putting into the home itself.
1:18:48 Andrew Pace: So understand that there are manufacturers out there that do make healthier furniture, that do make healthier window trips, treatments, healthier area rugs. In a lot of those situations, those products might seem more expensive than if you were to go down to the big box store and buy furniture off their showroom floor. Because the healthier materials are actually made to order. They may take five to ten weeks to get.
1:19:17 Andrew Pace: They’re made to your specifications. They will last a lifetime and more. They can be passed on to generations, kind of like the wool carpeting, but they will be more expensive at the outset. So what we’re trying to do is, if we can save upon those things in the construction process, to allow us to have more budget left over for those healthy interior materials, that’s really what we’re trying to accomplish.
1:19:41 Andrew Pace: And so. And to that point, it’s not only the materials that we furnish our homes with, but it’s also how do we clean our homes? How do we maintain our homes? I have had too many situations where people will build this beautiful, healthy home, and then they hire a cleaning crew to come in to clean it, and they use all these toxic materials to clean the house. And it’s like, oh, we feel like we’re back at square one. We’re not, of course, but for that initial time period, it’s not very healthy to be in that house until those cleaning materials dissipate.
1:20:12 Andrew Pace: So we have to look at it at all aspects. And again, we try to focus on the things that make the. The best possible health impact.
1:20:21 Tansy Rodgers: Hmm. You know, here on the Podcast. We talk so much about how the external world really affects our internal world. But I’m curious, I want to know how you see the reverse. How does changing our environment, taking these steps, building more sustainable green designs that are also non toxic, how does changing your environment actually affect more of your energy and your clarity of your mind? We’ve talked a lot about health, but I’m talking about, like, the other aspects, the deeper aspects of who we are.
1:21:01 Tansy Rodgers: How does that help shift us?
1:21:04 Andrew Pace: So I take a broader approach sometimes to healthy homes than most people in this space. Obviously we talked a lot about building materials, right. And chemicals. But I have to look at it from a larger standpoint, which is if you build a home that, do you want to live in a home that has, like, good mass appeal for resale value, you want to make the realtors happy? Or do you want to build a home or design a home that you just feel good being in because it just, it makes you feel good?
1:21:39 Andrew Pace: There is a type of, of construction and design that comes from Eastern Indian philosophy. It’s called Stapacha Veda. So you’ve heard of Vedic principles? All right, so Stapacha Veda is along those lines. And there’s one rule in Stapacha Veda architecture that says that every corner of every room should bring you bliss. And the way I translate it is if you walk into that space and you absolutely love.
1:22:10 Andrew Pace: Makes you smile every time you look at it. That’s a healthy home attribute that we cannot ignore, we cannot forget about. I remember a long time ago, I was lecturing at a large interior design school in Chicago, and we got on the subject of bamboo flooring. If you remember, like 15, 20 years ago, bamboo flooring became all the rage because everybody said it was environmentally friendly and sustainable, and everybody had to have bamboo flooring.
1:22:37 Andrew Pace: Turns out that bamboo is not really any healthier or any more sustainable than wood that’s harvested 100 miles away. However, bamboo has a very certain look to it that some people absolutely adore. I love the look of it. So I was talking about bamboo as an example of what I call greenwashing. And this one design student said, so I feel horrible because about a month ago, my husband and I just installed bamboo flooring in our house.
1:23:04 Andrew Pace: And now I feel like I chose the wrong material. And my response was, but do you love it? She goes, I absolutely love it. It’s exactly what we’re looking for. We feel good in the space. I said, well, then, case closed. That’s a healthy home attribute. It’s not just the materials themselves and the chemical composition, but how does it make you feel? Do we design and build these 5,000 square foot homes that we.
1:23:31 Andrew Pace: We can’t even afford to furnish, or do we design and build a 2,000 square foot home where every single room you love because it’s laid out the way you want it, and you can afford to furnish it and afford to furnish it using healthier materials. And so we have to look at that. And I think once we kind of open ourselves up to allowing for. How does that make us feel, not just chemical wise, but does it make. Does it put a smile on your face every time you see it?
1:24:05 Andrew Pace: We need to address that. We need to listen to that. And that becomes part of the process. And I think it makes this whole thing a lot easier.
1:24:14 Tansy Rodgers: That, yes to all of that. You know, even in my coaching work, my health. My health work that I do, the other aspects of my business, I always say, you know what, you don’t have to be perfect. What matters is how it makes you feel, how does how your soul feels, how you feel every day when you’re looking at it, doing it, what. That’s what really matters. Because it creates a certain way of being and living that you can’t necessarily get just by being perfect and picking all the right things.
1:24:50 Tansy Rodgers: And so I love that aspect of this work that you’re doing because that really just ties it all with a big, beautiful bow.
1:24:58 Andrew Pace: Wonderful.
1:24:59 Tansy Rodgers: It does. I love it. I love it. Oh, Andy, I love this conversation. Thank you so much. There needs to be more of this conversation coming up now. And I think, honestly, I think personally, since COVID more and more people are craving alternatives for getting healthy, craving alternatives for better living and a better lifestyle. And this is the kind of conversations that we have that we need to have more of. So thank you so much for coming on here and talking about that.
1:25:33 Andrew Pace: Oh, you’re welcome. And it was very fun. I appreciate all the questions, the conversation. It could go on. You and I could talk about this for the next four hours.
1:25:42 Tansy Rodgers: I’m sure I could, yes. Well, where can people find you? Where are you hanging out and what are you excited about in your work right now?
1:25:52 Andrew Pace: So the best way to find me would be. I have a new website, actually, for my own podcast and for my consulting. It’s called ntelive.com ntelive.com the green design Center. This is my building materials company and that’s the GreenDesignCenter.com so otherwise, just look up my name and one of my companies on Google, you’ll find me. I’ve been at this for a very long time. So if anything, I have longevity in my name.
1:26:25 Andrew Pace: But what am I working on now? Honestly, it’s more of this. It’s more conversations with people who are outside of my scope of building, but more into the whole scope of holistic living. I’m finding that the two marry together very well. You can’t have one without the other is what I’ve found. And I just want to say this too, in something that you brought up very quickly just before is you cannot strive for perfection.
1:26:53 Andrew Pace: You have to strive for tolerance, improvement, but never strive for perfection because you will never be satisfied. If you strive for perfection, you’re going to drive yourself to the poor house or the nut house, one of the two. You’re going to drive yourself crazy because it’s not possible, especially when it comes to living in a healthy home. Just do the best you can, manage your own expectations, manage the stress.
1:27:22 Andrew Pace: I have far too many clients that come to me in a panic because they’ve been looking at something for three days and they can’t decide which one is the healthiest. And you go into this analysis paralysis, and you just cannot do a thing. You’re just frozen to make the next step because you don’t want to make the wrong step. Understand that that isn’t possible. And sometimes it just helps to have someone like me talk to you and say, all right, I’ve heard your story, I’ve heard your pitch.
1:27:53 Andrew Pace: Here’s how you should do it, because this will be, from what I’m hearing, the best for you. And I kind of take the decision making process away from them a little bit, which alleviates the stress. And so do not strive for perfection, strive for tolerance, and strive for lowering the anxiety.
1:28:12 Tansy Rodgers: Did you hear that, listeners? For anybody out there who has announced paralysis, paralysis, anxiety, neurodivergent brains, can’t make a decision. You don’t have to be perfect. Yes, it is. Okay, Andy, do you have any last words that you would like to lay onto the hearts of the listeners for today?
1:28:34 Andrew Pace: Yes, I’d like to. So first of all, it’s kind of an apology, which is I spent the last amount of time talking about some really scary things. But on the other hand, it’s kind of more of a wake up call. And understand that for most people in their homes, this isn’t very, this isn’t that scary for most people. Those of us who have the ability to filter out the toxins and our bodies can filter it out and we’ll perform just fine after a period of time.
1:29:06 Andrew Pace: This is more of a long game for us. Let’s start to reduce these materials over time. For those of us who are severely sensitive, this is a literally a life or death conversation. And I want to acknowledge that because so many of my clients, one thing brought into the home can cause such a severe reaction. But for the majority of your listeners, just understanding that making one improvement here and there, whether it’s the building materials you use, the design materials, the clothing you wear, the skin care products you use, taking your shoes off at the door, any of those things will make an improvement. You may not notice it, you may not notice it right away, but it will improve the space. So just start with the very first baby step and it’ll go from there.
1:29:58 Tansy Rodgers: Thank you so much for being here and thank you for the work that you’re doing.
1:30:02 Andrew Pace: I appreciate that, Tansy. Thank you.
1:30:06 Tansy Rodgers: Okay, tell me, are you right now mentally walking through your house wondering what your paint is made of or are you googling whether your favorite couch off gases Formaldehyde? Yeah, same. Especially during this episode, I was making a list and thinking about all the places that I needed to check into. Andy reminds us that wellness doesn’t stop stop at your plate or your meditation cushion. It’s infused in the walls that we lean on, the air that we’re breathing, the spaces that we call home.
1:30:41 Tansy Rodgers: And when we align our external environment with our internal energy work, we stop spinning our wheels and we start healing on every single level. So here are a few questions I want you just to marinate with and and move forward thinking about these a little bit differently. What’s one space in your home that drains you? And what’s one small shift that you can make to support your energy there? Are there invisible toxins, physical or energetic, that you’ve just been tolerating?
1:31:18 Tansy Rodgers: What would it look like to clear or even let go of one of them? If your home reflected your current state of healing, would it feel calm, safe and aligned? Or would it feel like something else entirely? This isn’t about perfection. It’s about awareness, intention, baby steps towards building the kind of life and the space that feels like a full body hug, that feels like health. And if this episode lit something up inside of you, share it, let it ripple out.
1:31:56 Tansy Rodgers: Because that’s how we keep these conversations going and that’s how we get these conversations into the hands of other like minded people. Until next time, keep spreading that beautiful energy you were born to share.
