00:00:00
Music plays
00:00:02 Kristin Glossner
There’s a lot of risk factors in a building that can contribute negatively to our health, so a healthy building basically considers these risk factors and minimizes the negative health impacts to the occupants. So the goal is to choose healthier materials, but also to design and construct the building so we are promoting health as this is our number one goal.
00:00:23 Michelle Moran
Welcome to BuildingWell, Sustainable Homes, Equitable Communities, your new podcast from New Ecology. Join us as we explore real life stories from key players in green building and community development. We’ll examine exciting new innovations, highlighting practical solutions for creating more affordable, healthier, more resilient, equitable communities. We’re building well, together.
00:00:48 Molly Craft
This episode was made possible by the Mass Save Community Education Grant.
00:00:54 Michelle Moran
Hello and welcome to the BuildingWell podcast, your favorite podcast for information about sustainable, equitable communities. My name is Michelle Moran, and I’ll be your host today, along with my co-host, Alina Michelewicz.
00:01:05 Alina Michelewicz
Hello!
00:01:06 Michelle Moran
We’re joined here today by Kristin Glossner, and she’s going to be talking about healthy buildings and the impact of buildings on occupant health and safety.
00:01:13 Michelle Moran
This is going to be a great conversation. So without further ado, let’s get healthy. Welcome, Kristin.
00:01:19 Kristin Glossner
Hi, it’s great to be here. I’m excited to talk about healthy buildings today.
00:01:23 Michelle Moran
Me too.
00:01:24 Michelle Moran
All right. So, Kristin.
00:01:27 Michelle Moran
Could you please introduce yourself and give a little bit of information on your background?
00:01:31 Kristin Glossner
Yeah. So I’m Kristin and I pretty much knew from a young age that I wanted to be a part of the building industry. I would draw pictures of cities and buildings and amusement parks when I was younger, so this was pretty much the field that I knew I wanted to get into ever since I was a little girl. So when it came time to pick a career path, I chose construction science and management, and I worked as an.
00:01:51 Kristin Glossner
Intern and part time employee for a big commercial contractor in Kansas. So I was working on schools and then the K State Memorial football stadium. I graduated from Kansas State University with my Bachelor of Science and Construction Science and Management.
00:02:04 Kristin Glossner
And from there I secured a full-time job with the commercial contractor that I was.
00:02:07 Kristin Glossner
Working with.
00:02:08 Kristin Glossner
I started out as a project engineer and then ended up as a project manager. After a couple of years and I worked mainly on projects in the western Kansas area. Some of these projects included assisted living facilities, long term care facilities, schools, museums and even some pre con work for a zoo.
00:02:24 Alina Michelewicz
I want to hear more about that one.
00:02:25 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, that was a lot of fun.
00:02:28 Kristin Glossner
Around this time I started getting into sustainability and healthy buildings because I realized that the construction industry didn’t really utilize these principles that often, at least not in the region that I was working in in Kansas. So I ended up getting another job opportunity to come back to the East Coast, which is where I grew up and help develop sustainable and healthy building and city products at a semiconductor.
00:02:49 Kristin Glossner
Technology company. So I moved back up and I really started getting into the topics of healthy and sustainable buildings and cities.
00:02:55 Kristin Glossner
When I was working at the technology company, I spent a lot of time focusing on building standards specifically for healthy and green buildings, and I also spent a significant amount of time focused on circadian lighting as well, and the health benefits associated with this form of lighting. This is essentially lighting that mimics the spectrum of the sun, and I actually have gotten a patent for one of my technologies I contributed to in this area.
00:03:16 Kristin Glossner
Which is pretty cool.
00:03:18 Alina Michelewicz
Wow.
00:03:18 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, it was. Yeah. A lot of work. It’s great to see that patent out there. So at the same time, I went back to Graduate School and got my Master of Engineering and sustainable smart cities from the University of Alabama.
00:03:28 Kristin Glossner
Birmingham, as well as a Master of Science and Sustainable smart cities from Staffordshire University, which is in England, and a couple of months after I graduated, I found New Ecology and that has allowed me to pursue my passions in this field of work as a project manager, so I also have a range of certifications. I’m a WELL AP, a Certified Passive House Consultant, a LEED AP, and a LEED Green Rater.
00:03:49 Kristin Glossner
And this list is likely to continue to grow, and last in addition to working at New Ecology, I’m also an adjunct professor that teaches sustainability courses.
00:03:57 Alina Michelewicz
That’s cool. I didn’t know that. What exactly
00:04:00 Alina Michelewicz
Is construction science and management?
00:04:03 Kristin Glossner
Construction science and management.
00:04:05 Kristin Glossner
Is essentially project management work for the construction industry. So like a lot of the contractors that we work with personally out in the field, I would be the one in the field as a project manager focusing on the budget and the schedule and the purchasing.
00:04:23 Alina Michelewicz
I didn’t know.
00:04:23 Alina Michelewicz
That was like a degree you can get.
00:04:25 Kristin Glossner
Yeah. So a lot of it was technical construction information like learning a lot about buildings and the processes and the construction industry.
00:04:33 Alina Michelewicz
Cool. That’s cool.
00:04:36 Michelle Moran
Impressive! So Kristin, with your Masters degrees and the work that you’ve done, you were working for a long time on a thesis. Could you describe about your thesis, the topic and how it connects to health and health in buildings?
00:04:47 Kristin Glossner
Yeah. So I spent a significant amount of time in Graduate School studying healthy buildings and healthy cities. I also spent a lot of time in the green buildings and green cities area. But healthy buildings was really my passion. So my research regarding my thesis consisted of a literature review where I discussed different studies and research surrounding different topics related to healthy buildings.
00:05:07 Kristin Glossner
My absolute favorite topics in the realm of healthy buildings would have to be building material health and
00:05:13 Kristin Glossner
Biophilic design, but I also focused a lot on building related illnesses, sick building syndrome, as well as aspects like indoor air quality, lighting , day lighting, thermal health, active design, acoustics and the spread of transmissible diseases inside buildings.
00:05:29 Michelle Moran
Very topical from the past five years or so.
00:05:31 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, definitely.
00:05:33 Michelle Moran
So.What is a healthy building, Kristin?
00:05:35 Kristin Glossner
OK, so here’s my long winded.
00:05:38 Kristin Glossner
Response to that, so,
00:05:40 Kristin Glossner
Research tells us that we spend about 90% of our time indoors. So the indoor environment has a direct impact.
00:05:46 Kristin Glossner
On our health and the concept of unhealthy buildings is not new, so this concept goes back to when Cavemen were building indoor fires and exposing themselves to harmful smoke. This topic has been addressed throughout history, and mainly due to also poor living conditions and pollution in urban areas, which led to the modernist architecture movement, and that focused a lot on promoting health within the built environment.
00:06:09 Kristin Glossner
This focused on reducing crowds and disease.
00:06:12 Kristin Glossner
And promoting holistic design techniques that utilize aspects like air, sun and light. So basically a healthy building aims to minimize the negative health effects that are typically associated with traditional structures. Traditional structures, they have many different categories of risk factors and this might include mold, bacteria, dust, toxic chemicals.
00:06:32 Kristin Glossner
In products
00:06:33 Kristin Glossner
During construction, which could be insulation, paint, coatings, plasticizers, asbestos and lead, radon, even household products like cleaning products, other toxic chemicals that we might find in products could be the VOC contents or even tobacco smoke.
00:06:49 Kristin Glossner
So there’s other risk factors including indoor air temperature and humidity, which is a part of thermal comfort. Also, noises and vibration, ergonomics, and universal inclusive design. So there’s a lot of risk factors in a building that can contribute negatively to our health. So a healthy building basically considers these risk factors.
00:07:08 Kristin Glossner
And minimizes the negative health impacts to the occupants. So the goal is to choose healthier materials, but also to design and construct the building. So we are promoting health as this is our number one goal.
00:07:20 Michelle Moran
Wow, slightly off topic, but what is a VOC?
00:07:23 Kristin Glossner
A volatile organic compound.
00:07:25 Michelle Moran
And we find those and things like carpets and paints and things like that? Interesting.
00:07:27 Kristin Glossner
Yes.
00:07:29 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting.
00:07:33 Michelle Moran
So Kristin, we talked a lot about so far what a healthy building is and how we might go about making buildings healthy. What is a sick building?
00:07:41 Kristin Glossner
So a sick building is when you get sick from your building.
00:07:47 Kristin Glossner
There’s something called sick building syndrome, and it can manifest in many different ways, and there’s a lot of research on sick building syndrome. Unhealthy buildings may lead to dryness and irritation of your eyes, nose, throat and skin. Sick building syndrome may also consist of headaches, dizziness, fatigue, nausea, brain fog, sensitivity to odor, smells and taste.
00:08:07 Kristin Glossner
In addition to sick building syndrome, there’s actually building-related illnesses that can develop due to poor indoor environmental
00:08:13 Kristin Glossner
Conditions and these might include asthma, dermatitis, infectious disease transmission. Those are just some examples. I’ve also personally had my own experience dealing with sick building syndrome in my own home, so I had toxic black mold in my house that was hidden behind baseboard in my downstairs bathroom, and I started having all these symptoms dizziness, brain fog.
00:08:33 Kristin Glossner
Fatigue, sensitivity, and these symptoms lasted a significant amount of time, so I was consistently going to doctor’s appointments and getting tests done and I had a small child at home with me, so I wanted to make sure that I was checking out everything and considering the indoor.
00:08:47 Kristin Glossner
Conditions in my home, and when I got a mold remediator and I learned pretty quickly about poor conditions hiding in the basement bathroom that was contributing to my sickness in my home.
00:08:58 Michelle Moran
Wow, I can’t imagine if you didn’t have this expertise that you have that might have taken 10 times longer.
00:09:04 Michelle Moran
To figure out, more than that.
00:09:04 Alina Michelewicz
Or never.
00:09:05 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, I think a lot of my research and the fact that I had been learning a lot about healthy buildings at this time helped me identify that right away. And I started examining my home rather than just trying to keep doing all these tests to figure out what was wrong.
00:09:19
Me.
00:09:20 Alina Michelewicz
Wow. Yeah. Do you guys want to hear a house Horror Story?
00:09:21 Kristin Glossner
I’d love to hear it
00:09:21 Alina Michelewicz
The basement is so moldy that I am afraid to put an air purifier in it because I don’t have to clean the filter of the air purifier because.
00:09:40 Alina Michelewicz
Then I’d be having like exposure to so much mold. So instead I’m just going to like, ignore the basement.
00:09:46 Kristin Glossner
Definitely don’t ignore the basement.
00:09:48 Kristin Glossner
Definitely try to get somebody in who can help with the water getting inside the building and then remediate that mold.
00:09:56 Kristin Glossner
Is not good for you.
00:09:58 Alina Michelewicz
It’s—I don’t want to go into it. It’s really bad. I’m terrified.
00:10:06 Michelle Moran
So Kristin, how can building materials relate to building and occupant health?
00:10:12 Kristin Glossner
Yeah. So building materials are a major factor of health in the built environment. This is one of my favorite topics to talk about, and there are so many different pathways for exposure. For example, one of them is volatilization, which is when substances and materials off-gas.
00:10:26 Kristin Glossner
So basically the chemical changes into a gas and releases into
00:10:29 Kristin Glossner
The air and is commonly occurs with different wet applied products like paints, sealants, coatings, composite wood materials, and insulation, and these materials release volatile organic compounds, also known as VOC’s, into the air. There are also semi volatile organic compounds, also known as SVOC’s, and they have a similar off gassing process as VOC’s.
00:10:50 Kristin Glossner
That they evaporate at a slower rate, materials that contain plasticizers typically have this effect, another pathway for exposure occurs when a material breaks down and releases new compounds and chemicals, so this can occur from a material being scratched, for example, and dust or small particles getting
00:11:07 Kristin Glossner
Into the air, they can enter the body in different ways, so this might be ingestion. If you touch a contaminated surface and get dust on your hands, or this can be through inhalation as well. So it’s also important to note that the risk of exposure can happen at any time in the material’s life cycle, so this might occur during the raw material extraction and the manufacturing process as well as the.
00:11:28 Kristin Glossner
Construction and installation.
00:11:30 Kristin Glossner
And even to the end of life and the recycling of the material, an example of building products causing a negative impact to health would be materials and products that contain ingredients that contribute to asthma. So these substances and ingredients are found in coatings, finishes, spray foam, board insulation, flooring and carpet adhesives.
00:11:50 Kristin Glossner
Paint window frames, siding, composite wood. A lot of different materials.
00:11:58 Kristin Glossner
And children specifically are very vulnerable to these exposures and these ingredients and research shows that it can actually impair the respiratory and immune system development. So there’s one example. Another example would be formaldehyde, which is dangerous too. It’s a carcinogen that is found in wood based products, drywall and paints.
00:12:18 Kristin Glossner
VOC’s also give off a range of health issues.
00:12:22 Kristin Glossner
And then also some products can contain endocrine disruptors and impact the nervous system and reproductive system as well. There’s a lot of conversation about lead and asbestos. We know a lot about lead and the impact it can have to particularly young.
00:12:42 Kristin Glossner
Children who are still developing lead can stay in your body for a very long period of time, and it can be found in roofing materials and windows and plumbing products.
00:12:50 Kristin Glossner
And asbestos, which thankfully it’s banned in most countries now, but it’s pretty well known for its negative health impacts as well, and it’s found typically in older buildings and here at New Ecology we work a lot in older buildings and rehabbing them, so it’s found in older buildings and was used to reinforce building materials and protect from fire.
00:13:11 Kristin Glossner
In products like roofing tiles, vinyl flooring, adhesives and paints, and this can lead to lung diseases and workers can actually bring it home. And if they get dust that sticks to their clothing or shoes it can expose their family.
00:13:28 Kristin Glossner
So we want to avoid unhealthy materials in the home and we want to prioritize our health and set ourselves up for good health. There are products and building materials that are starting to come out on the market that don’t have harmful ingredients in them, and many manufacturers are becoming more transparent about the ingredients in their products. So we are able to make informed decisions.
00:13:48 Kristin Glossner
As customers and make sure that we’re picking products for our homes and buildings and aren’t negatively impacting us.
00:13:53 Michelle Moran
Wow, so that’s crazy. So it seems like from what you’re saying, like you said, we know about asbestos, we know about lead, but it’s almost everything that we use to build our homes or put in our homes or decorate our homes might have some sort of risk.
00:14:06 Kristin Glossner
Pretty much, yeah. Traditional buildings and the products and materials we put in them are not good for our health.
00:14:12 Alina Michelewicz
So what can people do?
00:14:14 Alina Michelewicz
What kind of research can you do?
00:14:16 Kristin Glossner
Pretty much, just make sure that we’re using products that are transparent with the ingredients that they’re using.
00:14:24 Kristin Glossner
When we’re considering healthier and more sustainable materials in our homes and buildings, the first thing that we can do is check out the manufacturers website and look at the SDS, which is also known as the safety data sheet.
00:14:36 Kristin Glossner
However, a best practice for making sure we’re choosing healthier building materials is by checking to see if there’s any third-party certification or reporting. So there are a couple of sustainability reporting tools that manufacturers use to provide transparency about their products.
00:14:52 Kristin Glossner
Two of them that come to mind are the health product declarations and declare labels. They provide information on the products’ ingredients so you can see if there are any chemicals or other ingredients that are of concern also. Alternatively, you might see if a product or material is third party certified. This would allow you to look at if they have low chemical emissions for example.
00:15:13 Kristin Glossner
And there are a bunch of third-party certifications out there, including Green Guard, and this applies to furniture and flooring building materials.
00:15:22 Kristin Glossner
There’s Floor Score and this applies to flooring, materials and adhesives. There’s also Green Label Plus, which considers carpet, cushions, adhesives, and there’s also Cradle to Cradle certification, which takes a look at the life cycle of the product to make sure it’s meeting strict health and sustainability standards.
00:15:41 Kristin Glossner
So this might include material health, making sure the product is contributing to a circular economy, that they’re reduced impacts to the environment during manufacturing, that natural resources are protected and that companies are committed to human rights and equity.
00:15:56 Kristin Glossner
There’s also lots of resources online to find materials that have low VOC content or no formaldehyde, for example. So we can kind of shop around when we’re doing something as simple as a home renovation maybe, so that we’re considering better materials in our building.
00:16:15 Michelle Moran
Interesting. So basically you can do it, but you have to you have to be on top of it, you have to research a bit,
00:16:19 Kristin Glossner
Yeah.
00:16:20 Alina Michelewicz
does improve ventilation also help? Does that help with VOC’s?
00:16:24
Or is it like there?
00:16:24 Kristin Glossner
It does, but I would always advocate for source control.
00:16:29 Kristin Glossner
So make sure that we’re getting rid of them at the source, or at least reducing it as much as possible.
00:16:36 Michelle Moran
Do you know if there’s any like website where you can search for VOC free paint for example or something like that? Or is there no central resource just yet?
00:16:45 Kristin Glossner
I would say to check the labels and use manufacturers that have.
00:16:50 Kristin Glossner
The ingredients listed out and are transparent because they’ll tell you what’s in their products. There’s materials for different certifications that have Red List items and Red List items, or essentially materials that we don’t want in our buildings. And like, sometimes you can go onto a manufacturer’s website.
00:17:11 Kristin Glossner
And find flooring for example, and make sure that all the items on the Red List all the materials on the Red List are not included in that building products. So I think transparency is key. You just have to kind of do your research a little bit.
00:17:26 Alina Michelewicz
So that’s one of the benefits of a healthy building certification then is the materials that are used in the first place.
00:17:32 Kristin Glossner
Yes, yes, that’s true.
00:17:35 Michelle Moran
Wow. So on that connection that Alina just made there, Kristin, are there specific green certifications that are for health or connect to health? Do you have experience in this?
00:17:43 Kristin Glossner
Yeah. So there are quite a few building certifications that address health. The first one that comes to mind is the WELL building standard. So this certification focus on aspects.
00:17:52 Kristin Glossner
Like air quality, water quality, lights, movement and promoting like that physical health aspect, thermal comfort, which is temperature and humidity, acoustics, materials and also your mind and mental health, as well as nourishment, which is the access to healthy foods. There’s also another healthy building certification
00:18:12 Kristin Glossner
Called Fit Well and this uses evidence-based design to address health behaviors in the built environment. There are strategies related to community health, safety well-being morbidity reduction, along with encouraging physical activity and providing access to healthy food options.
00:18:28 Kristin Glossner
There’s another certification called Reset, which uses data collection and technology to monitor materials, air quality, water, energy and circulatory like waste monitoring. So these are the healthy building certifications.
00:18:45 Kristin Glossner
Many of the green building certifications that are common in my line of work include LEED.
00:18:50 Kristin Glossner
Enterprise Green Communities, also known as EGC, Passive House and the Living Building Challenge. LEED and Enterprise Green Communities, have a significant amount of credits and criteria that utilize to help our buildings become healthier.
00:19:03 Kristin Glossner
So and then there are credits related to low VOC materials, which is a pretty common credit that a lot of my project teams go for, especially as we have more airtight buildings. It’s important that we consider the indoor environment with these healthier materials.
00:19:18 Kristin Glossner
EGC also has criteria that is focused on healthier building materials and considers the ingredients in the products beyond the VOC content. This is also pretty common with the Living Building Challenge as well. They list out certain ingredients that are banned from the products that we can use, to add to that, EGC.
00:19:37 Kristin Glossner
Also has a lot of criteria that aims to promote physical activity as well as healing and inclusive environments, which are also part of the healthy building realm.
00:19:47 Michelle Moran
So some of these are about healthy materials and building healthy buildings and some of them even incorporate other elements of health like physical activity or what did you say access to healthy foods and things like that?
00:19:58 Kristin Glossner
Yep.
00:19:59 Michelle Moran
That is really great.
00:20:01 Molly Craft
I’m Molly with your Mass Save Minute. Today, we’re shedding light on the weatherization options available to homeowners and renters throughout the Mass Save Program.
00:20:08 Molly Craft
What is weatherization? Weatherization means making your home more comfortable and energy efficient by sealing leaks and adding insulation. Mass Save offers a suite of weatherization incentives to improve your home’s energy efficiency, reduce your utility bills and enhance your comfort. For single family homeowners. The Home energy assessment is the first step. This no cost assessment identifies areas where energy is being wasted and identifies recommendations for improvement. Weatherization incentives cover a range of upgrades, including insulation, air sealing and window replacements.
00:20:40 Molly Craft
These measures help to keep homes warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer, reducing the need for heating and cooling.
00:20:46 Molly Craft
Additionally, Mass Save provides incentives for high efficiency heating and cooling equipment such as furnaces, boilers and air conditioners. Upgrading to these systems not only saves energy, but also improves indoor comfort for renters. Mass Save also offers the income eligible program providing no cost weatherization services to eligible households
00:21:06 Molly Craft
These services may include air sealing, insulation and other energy saving measures.
00:21:10 Molly Craft
By participating in Mass Save’s, weatherization programs, homeowners and renters alike can enjoy lower energy bills, increased comfort and a reduced environmental footprint. Head over to the Mass Save website at masssave.com, M-A-S-S-S-A-V-E dot com to learn more. That’s all for today’s Mass Save Minute. Thanks for joining us.
00:21:30 Molly Craft
Remember weatherizing your home isn’t just about saving energy. It’s about creating a more comfortable and sustainable living environment. Until next time, stay informed and energy conscious.
00:21:44 Michelle Moran
What about mental health?
00:21:45 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, so buildings don’t just impact our physical health, but they can also impact their mental health as well. One aspect related to healthy buildings that directly relates to mental health is biophilic design and views to the outdoors. There are a lot of studies that show that there are many well-being benefits to nature specifically.
00:22:03 Kristin Glossner
Reduce stress, improve sleep.
00:22:05 Kristin Glossner
Overall happiness improvements and satisfication with life and then increased social connectedness. So the concept of biofield design is to bring nature inside, and it’s said to have a similar impact in buildings utilizing biophilic design techniques, we might see natural lighting. We might see colors that are found in the natural environment.
00:22:25 Kristin Glossner
Water features, we might see plants or have natural ventilation, day lighting, or circadian lighting which.
00:22:32 Kristin Glossner
Is the lighting that mimics the sun’s natural spectrum that I was talking about a little bit earlier. We may have natural sounds or natural patterns and shapes that are frequent in nature. And then there’s also some concepts about the cultural connection to the area as well. Studies have shown that biophilic design can help with productivity is a big one.
00:22:52 Kristin Glossner
Overall increase in cognition reducing stress also helping enhance mood, reducing fatigue and also reducing sick building syndrome, as well as creating relaxation and positive emotions and occupants.
00:23:05 Alina Michelewicz
I have a.
00:23:06 Alina Michelewicz
Side anecdote. And so I went to this place in upstate New York in Irvington, and it was an ocatagon house. Have you heard about octagon houses?
00:23:17 Kristin Glossner
I don’t think so.
00:23:18 Alina Michelewicz
It’s like it’s an octagon shape, obviously. And the idea is that there was better air flow because you’d have windows on eight sides that could open. And one of the things that they talked about when we did a tour of this House.
00:23:28 Alina Michelewicz
That they had all gas lighting at that time. It was like the late 1800s or early 1900s. And so people would like, actually hallucinate.
00:23:36 Alina Michelewicz
Tonight cause the indoor air would be like just the gas fumes. And so this idea of like the Octagon House was so that there’d be more air coming in. And so you’d be healthier. And then also that you’d have more views to be outside, but it was just kind of an interesting thing of, like, well, they were really thinking about this like, back then, it wasn’t. It was like a really hot thing.
00:23:56 Alina Michelewicz
And then it like fades out. So there’s like Octagon houses a few places. There’s a really good 99% Invisible podcast about it, yeah.
00:24:03 Michelle Moran
We’ll link that in this. I’m fascinated by this idea of bringing nature inside because, as you said, some people are spending what’d you say, 90% of our lives indoors now.
00:24:12 Michelle Moran
Especially if you’re in a large multifamily building, really do improve your mood and you said they they improve air quality, indoor air quality, all that sort of stuff, so.
00:24:20 Alina Michelewicz
Right, and remembering COVID when everybody was getting plants, yeah, it was like you were in your house all the time. And you’re like, I need nature. Like you could.
00:24:28 Alina Michelewicz
Feel that you needed it? Yeah.
00:24:31 Michelle Moran
Thank you for that great overview about how materials affect the health of the building and the occupant health and mental health, which is a whole other important aspect. What about specifically about vulnerable populations, for example, how do building conditions affect seniors living in multifamily housing, for example?
00:24:47 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, so unhealthy building conditions are particularly harmful and a risk factor for vulnerable populations, so this may include those with chronic health conditions, children or even seniors. So with seniors, because they are more at risk, it’s extra important for us to consider healthier materials in our buildings, and eliminate the harmful ones. For example, the prevalence of.
00:25:08 Kristin Glossner
Asthma for older individuals is actually pretty similar to those who are younger, but older adults have a higher mortality from it, so it’s important to consider healthy homes and buildings that reduce products that have ingredients that lead to asthma. We also want to consider reducing dust and dander to avoid the trigger of athsma.
00:25:25 Kristin Glossner
Beyond that, in multifamily housing, it’s important to have a walkable space, particularly green space outside for seniors to help them stay active, but also be used as a restorative environment. And it’s also important to note that considering healthy buildings and multifamily senior housing can contribute to reducing the spread of transmissible.
00:25:45 Kristin Glossner
Diseases and illnesses. So we saw a lot of the impacts of illnesses being spread around to seniors, particularly with the COVID-19 pandemic and healthier buildings will aim to reduce the spread of these illnesses and keep the senior population healthier. And then last, with the extreme weather events and heat events.
00:26:03 Kristin Glossner
Rising, and how they will continue to do so in the future, we need to make sure that thermal comfort is an important aspect in senior multifamily homes as well and thermal comfort is another aspect that’s really focused on in the healthy building realm.
00:26:18 Alina Michelewicz
I think that’s really important. Just like from my own experience.
00:26:23 Alina Michelewicz
In my house, where it’s like 100° upstairs, it’s like unlivable in the summer, and even if you have the air conditioner around, it’s like 80°, so it’s like it’s killer. Literally!
00:26:35 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, literally. And that’s why healthy buildings are important.
00:26:40 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah, for sure.
00:26:42 Alina Michelewicz
So you were talking about the indoor air quality and I think this one has come up a lot in general news, like not just green building like, when the gas stove transition to electric was getting talked about in the news because people were like, no, I love my gas stove for cooking, but I think there’s a lot there that people don’t realize how.
00:27:02 Alina Michelewicz
Much it can cause asthma or like other issues, if you’re literally burning fuels inside of your house.
00:27:09 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, indoor air quality is a big one. That’s where the healthy materials come in, for example, because that’s going to improve the indoor air quality as well as increasing ventilation rates. There are a lot of health impacts to negative indoor air quality that can be detrimental.
00:27:25 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah, I think another thing I’ll talk about very much because we’re in Massachusetts, or
00:27:29 Alina Michelewicz
In the in the Boston area.
00:27:31 Alina Michelewicz
But in other areas of New England, people still have wood fires and they still have wood stoves. When I go to my family’s house and their wood stove is on, like my asthma is so much worse.
00:27:41 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, I go to my family’s house and they love their. They love their fireplace in the winter time, and I’m always just. I’m kind of, I’m kind of on their case about it.
00:27:52 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah.
00:27:53 Kristin Glossner
A lot. I do not like to breathe in the smoke that comes from that either, definitely impacts the air quality.
00:28:00 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah.
00:28:02 Michelle Moran
We talk a lot about our multifamily housing, which obviously wouldn’t have wood stoves, There’s so many single family homes that still have that kind of stuff, or fireplaces.
00:28:08 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah.
00:28:09 Kristin Glossner
Mhm. Yeah, we’re seeing a lot of the.
00:28:13 Kristin Glossner
Multifamily buildings that we’re working on, they’re not including fireplaces and wood stoves, which is which is good.
00:28:21 Michelle Moran
I’m just going to read some stats here. This is actually 10 years old now, but we worked at Old Colony which is a famous huge development over here in South Boston, and phase two. We did a case study with the Harvard School of Public Health and they basically interviewed residents and did measurements and they found from the Old Colony was an existing.
00:28:41 Michelle Moran
Tower block that was partially demolished and refurbished so the units were the people moved out and then they moved back in.
00:28:48 Michelle Moran
So they interviewed about their experience before and after, so they had a 57% reduction in particulate matter, 65% reduction in NO2
00:28:58 Michelle Moran
93% reduction in nicotine levels, which also had to do with smoking ban in indoor buildings and in public buildings, 47% drop in sick building syndrome symptoms, and specifically for asthma related issues in children, they reported 31% decrease in asthma attacks.
00:29:14 Michelle Moran
24% fewer asthma related hospital visits, and 21% fewer missed school days.
00:29: 20 Alina Michelewicz
Wow.
00:29:21 Michelle Moran
So this is just from, you know, they they ripped out the guts of the building and put.
In all.
00:29:25 Michelle Moran
New stuff. Can you imagine like what you had? Like you move in and wake up in one day and oh! you feel better.
00:29:30 Alina Michelewicz
That’s crazy.
00:29:32 Michelle Moran
I don’t know if it was that fast.
00:29:32 Kristin
Hahaha yeah.
00:29:34 Michelle Moran
That’s crazy. So like I’m just putting some stats to these concepts Kristin’s talking about it really has a real impact. I mean, 47% reduction in sick building syndrome symptoms…
00:29:44 Michelle Moran
Say that 10 times fast!
00:29:47 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah.
00:29:48 Alina Michelewicz
That’s really crazy. 21% reduction in missed school days. Huh. Another thing I want to point out is when you were talking about formaldehyde and lead.
00:29:58 Alina Michelewicz
People know about asbestos and lead. I think some of the other danger is specifically related to women’s health, reproductive health and infant health are talked about less.
00:30:10 Alina Michelewicz
The endocrine symptoms that you mentioned, and formaldehyde and stuff is really important to highlight how there’s also disparity, I think in the gendered aspect.
00:30:19 Kristin Glossner
Yeah. Yeah, I know that there have been studies that have shown that women are more likely to have greater sick building syndrome symptoms than men are. That was part of my research for my thesis as well. So I learned quite a little bit of that.
00:30:34 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah. Well, yeah, it’s really it’s really hard, especially because infants are home most all the time. So they’re
00:30:41 Michelle Moran
Right, they can’t drive.
00:30:42 Alina Michelewicz
Haha they can’t drive. Michelle.
00:30:43 Kristin Glossner
Yeah.
00:30:45 Kristin Glossner
With children, they are particularly vulnerable, and they’re developing so harmful materials and bad indoor air quality can disrupt their development.
00:30:57 Alina Michelewicz
Mhm. What about water quality?
00:30:59 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, water quality is also one of those things that definitely impacts our health as well. There’s lots of chemicals that are added to the tap water in our cities, and all of those have a negative impact on our health.
00:31:14 Kristin Glossner
Lead can really impact the cognition of children growing up. So like in the Flint, Michigan case, there was lead high levels of lead in the.
00:31:23 Kristin Glossner
Water supply from corroded pipes and it can stay in your body for long periods of time and it impacts you for a long time. So children that are developing it really impacts their cognition and, and their development.
00:31:36 Alina Michelewicz
Mhm. What elements in the healthy building certifications would take lead or water into account?
00:31:42 Kristin Glossner
For example, with the WELL building standard, they focus on water quality.
00:31:43 Alina Michelewicz
Oh, ok.
00:31:44 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, that’s one of the principles. That’s some of their criteria that they have to focus on the water quality as well.
00:31:54 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah
00:31:55 Kristin Glossner
Which is very different from the green building certifications because we don’t see a lot of water quality being focused, with the green building certifications.
00:32:03 Kristin Glossner
It’s about reducing water, whereas with the healthy building certifications, it’s more about the actual quality itself.
00:32:10 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah. OK. Can we talk a little more about mold?
00:32:14 Kristin Glossner
Yeah.
00:32:15 Alina Michelewicz
How does it develop in the house, and how do you avoid it in multifamily buildings?
00:32:21 Kristin Glossner
So with mold, it can pretty much develop from issues in the building envelope, like water ingress, condensation and material decay, as well as excessive moisture in the building. This can lead to asthma, for example, or rhinitis, and general sick building syndrome, as well as issues with your memory and cognition.
00:32:41 Kristin Glossner
It can pretty much grow on most building materials and furnishings, but it’s very important.
00:32:45 Kristin Glossner
To make sure that the humidity ratios in the building are not too high and that we’re not having excessive moisture in the air, for example, or water getting in and not being able to take care of that.
00:32:56 Alina Michelewicz
What is a healthy humidity level for an indoor space?
00:33:00 Kristin Glossner
So typically they recommend between 40% and 60% humidity.
00:33:05 Alina Michelewicz
Mmm. Nice. Hahaha.
00:33:08 Kristin Glossner
Is your home above that?
00:33:10 Alina Michelewicz
In the winter, it’s can be below 20 and in the summer it can be above 80.
00:33:14 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, you definitely need a dehumidifier. Hahaha.
00:33:18 Michelle Moran
So mold’s particularly dangerous, right? Because like you said, it can hide it really easily like it was underneath your baseboard, which you would never have seen unless you took it apart.
00:33:27 Kristin Glossner
Yeah. So it was the smell, so I could smell something. And I had that sensitivity to odors because I was having all these other symptoms on top of it. I had the dizziness, I had the brain fog. I just could not focus for my life. And every time I stood up, I was just so dizzy and I was thinking, am I dehydrated? I was thinking of pretty much everything. Like, is this a.
00:33:47 Kristin Glossner
Greater health problem? All these things, and I just, I noticed that there was a stench in the basement and everyone tells you ohh basement smell.
00:33:55 Kristin Glossner
And I got in a mold remediator because like there’s no way like I can’t deal with the smell. And then they actually ripped apart pretty much my entire basement bathroom. I guess the previous ownership, it was ,just they weren’t ventilating it well when they were showering down there and like using.
00:34:15 Kristin Glossner
The laundry. So yeah, it was hiding behind everything. And honestly for like.
00:34:20 Kristin Glossner
A year or two it was.
00:34:22 Kristin Glossner
The, there was no drywall down there was pretty much just like an open room.
00:34:27 Alina Michelewicz
Better that than mold though.
00:34:28 Kristin Glossner
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, they they had to take out a lot and there was also mold in the attic as well that had to be taken care of due to roof leaks.
00:34:38 Alina Michelewicz
Oh, roof leaks, not condensation.
00:34:41 Kristin Glossner
No. Yeah, not condensation. When I bought the house, I found out right away that there were six leaks that have been going on for quite a long time. That wasn’t fixed by previous ownership. Thankfully, it’s all fixed now, but there was a lot of mold and issues up in the attic as well.
00:34:57
Yeah, that’s tough.
00:34:59 Alina Michelewicz
I think it’s hard when you get a new house too. It’s like people can cover things up too.
00:35:03 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, that was one of the problems with my house. So, another aspect in healthy buildings that we need to consider is pests. And when I first bought my house, that was another problem that I didn’t realize until I had been living there for quite some time. I had mice and rats.
00:35:18 Kristin Glossner
That would steal, steal my dog’s food and bring them into the walls. That’s another thing that’s really important in a home that’s to focus on, you know, making sure we don’t have pests. That could be a huge problem to our health. Rats and mice, they can carry diseases and.
00:35:34 Kristin Glossner
That can be transmitted to people.
00:35:37 Michelle Moran
So many things to think about, and then you also mentioned earlier, resilience to climate events and weather events, which we didn’t really touch on, but is another huge portion of healthy buildings correct?
00:35:47 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, because with the changing climate and the changing weather patterns and events that are going to be coming in the future, we need to make sure that we have homes that are resilient and can keep us healthy and safe. And we’re not getting in water, for example, um excess water that’s going to.
00:36:07 Kristin Glossner
Increase the amount of mold we have in our house or our thermal comfort. For example, making sure that, you know our systems are working correctly so we’re not uncomfortable or having health impacts from the humidity or the indoor air temperature not being comfortable.
00:36:25 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah, I think we’ll get into that more too with Wen and Paul on the next episode.
00:36:31 Alina Michelewicz
Could you tell us about radon? I don’t think that’s a huge issue in Mass, but it is in New Hampshire, right?
00:36:36 Kristin Glossner
Yeah. So right on occurs from the ground and it can pretty much leak into your homes. And this is actually one of the top few leading causes of lung disease and lung cancer.
00:36:52 Alina Michelewicz
Whoa.
00:36:53 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, I always recommend that everybody should get their basement checked. I know my house. Back when I was living in Kansas, I had really high radon levels in the basement. So I got a whole fan system put in, but I see it happening a lot.
00:37:09 Alina Michelewicz
Really?
00:37:10 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, they’re in a certain zone where radon is higher than other areas and they’re putting in systems to just make sure the air quality is.
00:37:19 Alina Michelewicz
So it can happen in multifamily buildings. I guess that makes sense, but I just never thought about it.
00:37:22 Kristin Glossner
Yes. Yep, that’s correct.
00:37:25 Michelle Moran
Kristin. So in a home, are there specific rooms that relate to health in different ways than other rooms? For example, you talked about the basement.
00:37:32 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, there are a bunch of sources of indoor air pollution, depending on the residential room type, so the attic might have that asbestos or unhealthy insulation as well as dust and dust mites. Bedroom might have your typical allergens carpets that is tracking in air pollutants.
00:37:51 Kristin Glossner
The garage you might have to consider carbon monoxide, gas, solvents.
00:37:56 Kristin Glossner
Paint and chemicals, in a bathroom you might need to consider excess humidity, your personal hygiene products, which if you’re spraying different sprays can have harmful impacts to your health as well, and also mold in a bathroom your home office. You might need to focus on printers and photocopiers.
00:38:17 Alina Michelewicz
Really?
00:38:18 Kristin Glossner
Yup. Because they can give off ozone, and furniture as well. So furniture can have high VOC content or the formaldehyde and different vapors that are harmful for our health. With kitchens, we have our cooking pollutants, we have.
00:38:30 Kristin Glossner
Different lingering odors and different bacterias, in a living room we might need to consider fireplaces, for example dust and other sorts of allergens. Carpet. Again, that might be catching these pollutants, and you know you can touch them, you can inhale them, and then in the basement, yeah, we have the.
00:38:50 Kristin Glossner
High humidity levels, bad odors, mold, carbon monoxide.
00:38:54 Kristin Glossner
Also possibly fireplaces and smoke, radon, also dust and combustion systems, also paint and chemicals, but that can be applicable pretty much to the whole house as well as household cleaners as well.
00:39:08 Alina Michelewicz
I’m feeling very overwhelmed.
00:39:10 Kristin Glossner
Yeah it’s a lot.
00:39:11 Alina Michelewicz
I feel like. I think my house is slowly killing me.
00:39:14 Kristin Glossner
Traditional structures and buildings are probably slowly killing us, and if we want the, if we want to be healthier in the long term, like I really, truly believe that our indoor.
00:39:27 Kristin Glossner
Environments are a huge factor and a huge key to improving all of our healths.
00:39:35 Michelle Moran
All right. Well, Kristin, thank you so much for joining us today and talking about this with us today.
00:39:41 Michelle Moran
Do you have any closing thoughts before we sign off?
00:39:43 Kristin Glossner
Yeah. So as building professionals, I believe that we can change the way we build and sustain the built environment, and we can do this by promoting health. I think it’s important that we don’t just consider the environmental principles when designing and constructing our buildings, but we also start prioritizing health in the built environment because this can improve outcomes that are related to both the social aspects.
00:40:04 Kristin Glossner
And economic aspects of sustainability.
00:40:06 Michelle Moran
Excellent.
00:40:07 Alina Michelewicz
This was great. Thank you.
00:40:08 Kristin Glossner
Yeah, of course. I’m happy to be here.
00:40:10 Michelle Moran
Thanks so much.
00:40:12 Michelle Moran
Thank you again to Kristin for that deep dive into health and safety as it relates to buildings and sustainable development, we learned a lot there. That was crazy. We encourage all of our listeners to check out our previous episodes, and like, rate, and follow BuildingWell on your preferred player. Stay up to date for future developments and episodes.
00:40:34 Michelle Moran
BuildingWell is available on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, YouTube, and most other podcast services. Information on this episode, including show notes, references and the transcript, can be found on our website at newecology.org/buildingwell/podcast.
00:40:50 Michelle Moran
Please follow New Ecology on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter/X at new_ecology. Thank you to our listeners for tuning in today and thank you to Kristin and Alina for joining me. See you on the next episode!
00:40:59 Alina Michelewicz
See ya!
00:41:01 Kristin Glossner
Bye!
00:41:02 Molly Craft
This episode was made possible by the Mass Save Community Education grant.
00:41:07 Michelle Moran
The BuildingWell season one podcast committee at New Ecology is led and organized by Alina Michelewicz and Michelle Moran. Mass Save Minutes by Molly Craft. Production, editing and music by Michelle Moran. Video editing by Michael Abdelmessih. Episode notes by Kristin Glossner. Transcript by Michelle Moran. Episode description by Michelle Margolies.
00:41:28
Music plays.