[OKC] Local sources of natural low VOC paints and finishes

[Robert Waldrop]

Thanks for these resources.  I had a private email 
which said that Benjamin Moore has several low or 
no VOC, low order paint products, and also said 
that BM in general gets good marks for the 
environmental protection standards in their 
manufacturing and packaging processes.

We have been pounding plaster again this week. 
After a year with our passive solar 
heating/cooling "system", we've decided we need 
more interior air flow, so we're putting openings 
above each of the interior doors, including the 
doors from the sun porch into the kitchen (but not 
including any of our doors that open to the 
exterior).  We opened the last one today (cough 
cough).  We can already feel a difference in the 
way the air moves through the house.  Unlike the 
transom windows of the grade school I went to that 
was constructed in the 1920s, we aren't (at least 
initially) going to put a window or door in these 
openings so they could be closed.  If we decide 
that would be helpful (after more observation of 
our expeience) we will probably make them out of 
wood rather than glass.  The traditional transom 
window was hinged at the bottom and opened and 
closed with a chain apparatus.

Anyway, this facilitates the movement of heat, 
which is for my money the critical factor in 
passive solar.  In the winter, the transom 
openings will help heat move from the sunporch 
into the kitchen and from there through the rest 
of the house.  In the summer, the transom openings 
will help heat move out of the rooms via the 
convection caused by the whole house fan and 
thence outside the house.

Besides the passive solar benefits, I really like 
the effect of the openings on the interior feel of 
the house. It's like I somehow tweaked the feng 
shui of the house in a beneficial direction.  I 
haven't decided if we are going to put up a grill, 
or if I am just going to paint or maybe stain the 
wood studs that is now exposed above the door 
frames.  They can't be removed, or rather, 
removing them would be more hassle than we want to 
deal with, so they have to stay.

A second minor project on our fall agenda is to 
make a heat absorber for our sun porch that should 
create more transfer of heat from the sun to the 
air and thence into the house.  This will simply 
be a piece of black, 90% shade cloth that we will 
hang down the center of the sunporch (which is 
about 5 feet wide), its top will be just below the 
bottom of the new transom openings into the 
kitchen, it stops at the lower level of the 
windows.  Being black this will heat up and warm 
air on both sides of it which then rises and moves 
through the transom openings into the house, it 
can also move through the two doors into the 
kitchen.  Or so goes the theory anyway.

We are also going to try putting aluminum foil on 
the non-glazed walls and the floor of the sunporch 
to reflect sunlight back up and into the heat 
absorber, thus hopefully increasing the amount of 
heat recovered.

Jennifer mentioned in a private email to me that 
she was thinking of ways to close off the openings 
of two your inoperable floor furnaces in the 
floors of her house.  We have two of those too, in 
past winters we have taken the grate off the top, 
put down several layers of newspapers, put the 
grate back on and then covered them with one or 
two area rugs.  We would like a more permanent 
solution so if anybody has ideas about that, I bet 
Jennifer and I would both be interested in the 
answers.  I have hardwood floors.

Bob Waldrop, OKC

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jennifer Gooden" 
<jgooden at homelessalliance.org>
To: "Robert Waldrop" <bwaldrop at cox.net>; 
<okc at sustainableokc.org>
Sent: Monday, September 18, 2006 3:42 PM
Subject: RE: [OKC] Local sources of natural low 
VOC paints and finishes


Bob, I have found a couple of sources.  Sherwin 
Williams sells two
kinds: Harmony, which is low-odor and no-VOC, and 
Duration, which is
low-odor, low-VOC, and very durable (you can clean 
marker stains off it
with soap and water).  Both are for indoor use. 
The Sherwin Williams at
NW 35th and Classen carries both in their store.

I have found low-VOC paint made by Olympic for 
sale at LOWE's.  The
employees there usually don't know what low-VOC 
means, though, so ask
for low-odor paint.

I have heard that Benjamin Moore also makes a 
no-VOC paint, but I
haven't tried it.

Jennifer Gooden
Program Coordinator
The Homeless Alliance

-----Original Message-----
From: okc-bounces at sustainableokc.org
[mailto:okc-bounces at sustainableokc.org] On Behalf 
Of Robert Waldrop
Sent: Monday, September 18, 2006 1:20 PM
To: okc at sustainableokc.org
Subject: [OKC] Local sources of natural low VOC 
paints and finishes

Has anyone come up with Oklahoma City area sources 
for low VOC paints
and finishes?

If so, I could use that info in the near future.

Bob Waldrop, OKC


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