Having three children with mild to severe allergies has, in the past, prevented us from making much needed home repairs and remodeling. Not any more! I have to say in the last 4 months, I have safely - may I underscore the word SAFELY - stained and sealed 7 windows, sealed a dining room table, sanded and sealed two floors, painted three rooms, two hallways and one bathroom, and grouted and sealed a tile floor. Not knowing how to do this safely - can cause allergies to get worse! I should know because the first room we painted was the bedroom that my sons share. I will end up painting over this bedroom because of the paint that I used on the first try and the allergy implications.
When I painted my son's room, I used a ZERO VOC paint that costs about $38.00 a gallon at a national chain home improvement store. VOC stands for Volatile Organic Compounds, which are basically chemicals known to cause cancer and other serious health issues. My sons, by the way, have low and mild environmental allergies - nothing major. The stink from this paint was shocking given the price I had paid. I kept the boys out of the room for a few nights, but the smell was still very strong even after days had passed. After a few weeks, the room still smelled much more than I expected, and my middle son had developed what is called "allergy shiners", something that he has not presented with for a long time.
I even ozoned the room to eliminate the smell and the chemicals. No big improvement. This was my "Ah-Ha" moment, when I realized that it would be a mistake to use this paint for any remaining rooms in our house. I went to the AMF Safecoat website, http://www.afmsafecoat.com, and found that in addition to VOC's, some paints contain formaldehyde, ammonia, acetone or odor masking agents. Based on this, I decided to order some AMF Safecoat paint for two other rooms in the house as well as some drywall primer. The AMF Safecoat products were priced higher, but the results were extraordinary!
In a very short time after being primed and painted, the room did not smell much at all! Within 24 hours, I felt that there was almost no smell at all. The hardest part about purchasing AMF Safecoat paints is going to be (a) where to buy them and (b) how to get the right color. So, let me give you a little bit of information about those two items.
AMF Safecoat Paints vs a Zero VOC paint - Huge Difference
AMF Safecoat paint is going to run you about $50.00 a gallon, which could be on par with some of the zero VOC paints or slightly more than some paints cost. Many of you will end up purchasing AMF Safecoat paints through the internet since there are not a ton of dealers in the U.S. That brings me to my next point - how to get the color you want. If you are lucky enough to live within driving distance of a dealer, you can visit them and work out the color issue. Make sure you call them first and make sure they carry the paint and can tint the paint. To get our first colored can of paint, we selected a color swatch from a major paint company, a competitor, and had the dealer color match the swatch. This actually worked very well in my humble opinion.
However, when you are buying premium paint, who wants to get the wrong color? We ended up paying a $30.00 deposit fee to get the AMF Safecoat color swatches, which we can return and get our $30.00 back. Now that we have all this painting and drywall sealer experience under our belts, I get to re-paint the boys room to seal in that awful paint - and hopefully end the stench of the bad paint. Lessons learned in the school of hard knocks. Thank the Good Lord that I didn't paint my daughter's room with the first brand of paint!
Thinking about finishing furniture, windows, or your floors? Stay tuned for my next blog post about the difference between regular polyurethane sealers and a non-toxic sealer as well as the stains. Happy repairs or remodels!
Love,
Lisa
Oh, good thing you found safer paints. They say that there are organic and natural liquids that were mixed with the paint and you eventually saw the results. It's health-friendly and environment-friendly at the same time. He's so friendly, right? :D
Posted by: Hardy Coufal | August 25, 2011 at 10:52 AM