I just found out that my great nephew is allergic to plastics,nickel,epoxies,laminates,…just about every thing in his house. I’m looking for helpful websites and information on how to detox his home. The kitchen cabinets are all wrapped in laminates,and I,m wondering if there is some product they can be sealed with as an interim fix. Thanks in advance for any info you may have on this subject
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Replies
Air changes, lots of them. Then a "For Sale" sign. He needs a different house.
PAHS works. Bury it.
I'd start with removing 100% of carpet and probably also the shower curtains. (use doors or none) those are the worst villains.
Then seal the duct work and the crawl and install really good Panasonic bath fans, the kind that idle at 50 cfm and ramp up to higher when you use the shower or toilet.
Looking for a new house isn't a bad idea but I'd want to get a handle on which chemical sensitivities are most problematic for his situation before blindly prescribing a no-bad house so as to be able to make cost-benefit comparisons.
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Look at the sealants by AFM (American Formulating and Manufacturing), such as Hard Seal. You can get a quick spec chart as well as MSDS at http://www.afmsafecoat.com/products.html
People have used aluminum foil, sealed with whatever tape he can tolerate, usually alum. tape.
Here's the problem: even stuff like Hard Seal has the potential--everything does--to irritate the young guy. Allergies being a totally individual situation. So, you have to test it on him really well with making up samples over a substrate that he tolerates before you douse the whole kitchen with it. His doc needs to give his blessing on this.
Good luck. Address the biggest areas of the most irritating stuff first to get the biggest bang for your buck. Don't make it worse by using untested (on him) products that are SUPPOSED to rectify the situation. A lot of us get better once we get the worse offenders handled. So much so that the rest don't bother us enough to need correcting. A new house can bring its own, unknown problems.
I'm sure some items don't offgas nearly as much as others and direct contact with something like hard plastic doesn't necessarily mean he will have a reaction to it, but he might to carpet.
As others have said getting good ventilation on an ongoing basis is probably key. If the modern plastic finishes (poly, etc.) don't work well with him, but something like shelac does then you might have found a coating that can be applied to a number of surfaces to keep what underneith from causing problems.
Let us know what you find out! Quite interesting.
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