What Material is Really Healthiest? Testing Chemical & Microbial Emissions

Ever wondered how that fir trim in your house might be impacting you? What about the microbial community on your concrete basement wall? Probably not, but it’s our job to see how building materials may influence health.

We looked at 4 different building materials: timber, concrete, earth (think cob or adobe), and gypsum to assess what kind of VOCs  they might be emitting and how that might influence the microbes that you find on the surfaces. Not all VOCs are harmful either, so we wanted to get a full picture of each material. Timber, for example, had the least bacterial abundance but the highest VOC emissions. To learn more, read our paper here!