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| I have a lot of painting to do in the near future with some already underway. I have 3 young children in the house and am a cancer survivor myself so keeping toxins to a minimum is especially important to me. I'd prefer to use zero VOC paints but I don't want to waste time/money on inferior products. I've used Olympic Premium Zero VOC paint with good performance results, but I hate their tiny swatch cards and I've had some lack of success getting the paint reasonably accurately tinted to match chips from other paint lines. It also is not easily available at times (only carried at Lowe's and they sometimes don't have the base that I need in the finish that I want for the color that I desire). Can folks recommend other zero VOC paints and primers for that matter that they've been happy with? Any that you would suggest I avoid? Thanks! |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by christophern (My Page) on Sat, Jan 5, 13 at 5:27
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- Posted by happygardener23 (My Page) on Sat, Jan 5, 13 at 9:48
| Thank you for the Mythic paint suggestion. It looks great in terms of "ingredients" but I have no sense of performance, and I can't find any color swatches on their site other than spending $140 to order a set of color chips. The dealer locator on the website shows the closest dealer at 30 miles away, so I'm not sure that it's a practical option as I go room by room, but maybe I could try to work around that. Is it likely that the website is not up to date and the paint is more widely available than it looks? Can you comment on your experience using the paint? |
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- Posted by christophern (My Page) on Sat, Jan 5, 13 at 17:57
| I have never used it but you seemed overly concerned with VOC's and this came to mind. All paint brands have zero voc paints. I would go to the local Ben Moore or Sherwin Williams and ask |
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| We used Mythic and like it a lot. I don't know whether this is a company thing or specific to particular stores, but the Mythic dealer we go to is able to match any Ben. Moore color. |
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- Posted by sunnyflies (My Page) on Fri, Jan 25, 13 at 15:59
| I just read that as of June 2011 Benjamin Moore's Aura lost its Greenguard rating, so I am not going to be using it. |
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| How can anything made of a mixture or organic chemicals emit no volatile organic compounds? I suggest that you look into the standards for these coatings and see what the difference is between low and "zero". Also consider the fact that organisms have the capability to deal with environmental toxins and your exposure will be short-term. |
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- Posted by happygardener23 (My Page) on Tue, Jan 29, 13 at 12:10
| Ionized- zero VOC paints have 0 VOCs. Low VOC paints have 50 VOCs or less per whatever the unit of measurement is (I can't recall at the moment). I realize that VOCs at the time of measurement is not the be all end all standard of paint safety, but it is a start and I am starting there (I also check to make sure that the pigment added to tint the paint is also 0 VOC). As it happens, I (and some of my young children) have a genetic blood disorder that inhibits our ability to process and remove toxins from our bodies, and as I mentioned I am also a cancer survivor. In addition, not only will I be doing the painting, we will also be living in the house, so I do not consider the exposure to be short term. I appreciate the information that people have to offer, but I don't appreciate being judged as to why such an issue should or should not matter to me and my family. If it doesn't matter to you, that is just fine. It does matter to me. |
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| I neither meant, nor do I care to offer any judgment. I don't doubt that some people are less able to process chemicals than others. The specifics of a blood disorder that might do that are not firmly in my grasp. Then I am not a toxicologist. It sounds very interesting, but kidney and liver disorders that cause problems with chemical processing make more sense to me. I can expand on my comments a little and maybe you will understand the points that I was trying to make. In order to avoid organic building materials, you would have to live in a structure made of stone, metal and glass. Unfinished wood gives off a lot of volatile organic compounds. With some woods, like cedar and "pines", it is particularly noticeable. No houseplants would be allowed either since they give off lots of volatile organic chemicals. (Especially those darned flowers that you can smell. Otherwise, you could not smell them.) There is no such thing as zero volatile organic. Any zero standard is arbitrary. it depends on the measurement method and the background level in the environment you are measuring in. For example, what do your 0 and 50 mean if you are breathing in 100 in your otherwise everyday environment? Any volatile organic materials given off by paint is given off in a rate that decays exponentially. To anyone in the immediate environment, there is relatively high exposure initially. The rate of release decays, but never, ever reaches zero. That is why any exposure that a typical DIY homeowner has would be considered transient. Someone who paints daily or frequently (or works in paint manufacturing or sales) is chronically exposed. Lastly, very analogous to allergens, the only way to rationally avoid chemicals that someone is sensitive to is to figure out what chemicals cause problems. Only then can you avoid the ones that are important to you. Everything that you eat and breathe are chemicals. Life is chemicals, mostly organic and lots of them volatile. |
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