Green paint is good for the environment, we all agree. Additionally, specially formulated green paint products can be an important step in reducing the hazards from toxic outgassing from construction materials like plywood and drywall.
Painting in Partnership, from the Chicago area, is currently involved on a green house painting project where a kitchen is being remodeled. The remodeling involves the use of new plywood for the sub-floor and new drywall for parts of the ceiling and walls. Our client being highly environmentally sensitive, a critical step in ensuring the success of this project consists in the careful selection of only the greenest of materials for the project.
Primers that Seal In Toxic Outgassing in Plywood and Drywall
The Project Coordinator and Interior Designer for the project, Ginny Blasco, specked green primers by AFM Safecoat for both the plywood and the drywall. The product of choice for the plywood is called Safe Seal. It penetrates deeply into the wood surfaces, seals in the exterior plywood surfaces and prevents future toxic outgassing of formaldehyde. The sheets of plywood are sealed with two coats of this product on both sides and all edges. The cuts are also sealed in the same manner. Since the Safe Seal product stays a little tacky when dry, we substituted the Hard Seal product as a second coat on the top face of the plywood sheets.
For the drywall, there are two products. One is a heavy-body primer called Primecoat HPV and is intended to seal in toxic outgassing in new drywall. The other, called Transitional Primer, is much thinner and is intended for previously painted drywall. Among Primecoat’s ingredients are limestone, calcined clay and calcium carbonate.
Doing green painting is more demanding. It requires a willingness to do research on alternative products, experiment to see which product will achieve the best result and, on occasion, develop new application techniques. Helping to produce a healthy environment for our chemically sensitive clients is part of what we do at Painting in Partnership.
Follow
