Considerations When Building a New Home

Unfortunately, today's topic comes about from a situation that probably could have been avoided. A colleague of mine had purchased an RO (reverse osmosis) system, but wanted us to wait to install it since she was moving.

Something about the way she said it lead me to believe she was moving into an already-built home, not waiting for the builder to complete a new project for her. Had I known, we could have very easily set up her RO system for installation in the basement and just run the lines to connect to the kitchen sink and to the refrigerator. We could have also worked with her granite installer to get them to pre-cut a hole for the RO's separate faucet in her kitchen sink - typically at no additional charge...

That didn't happen, so when she called to arrange the booking after taking possession, we now had to get the granite people out for a service call to make the faucet's installation hole, and we now need to install the system and the storage tank under the sink, since the basement is finished and has a drywalled ceiling.

If it was a drop or "t-bar" style ceiling, we'd probably have been ok still, but there's no way to run the plumbing connections through the drywall without damaging or probably removing a few sections - not something she was wanting to do on her BRAND NEW home....

When we test the water and find out what sort of treatment (if any) she'll need for the whole-home, that is typically not too big a problem as connecting to the existing plumbing is quite straight forward. Only the drinking water system is causing problems. (It is a seperate system and uses its own plumbing connections.)

Too bad... But the lesson here is to always plan ahead. If you're building a new home, it is SOOO easy to get your drinking water system installed during the construction phase and it can all be neatly tucked-away - even inside what will be finished ceilings and drywall. We can also more-easily run connections to second floor areas.

Quite often, people would like to have a drinking water faucet right in their ensuite, or upstairs bathrooms. If the master bedroom is upstairs and you get thirsty in the middle of the night, its a lot easier to just pop your glass under a nearby faucet rather than head downstairs....

It never hurts to ask - if you're planning on building, or already in the construction phase, give us a call and see if there's any shortcuts you can take for a seamless installation. This is a great time to quit the bottled water habit. You can get better quality, for WAY less money, and an almost endless supply right in your own home - all it takes is a little planning and it can be a perfect setup.

Why Would I Want to Filter My Drinking Water???

This is definitely a question I get a lot. People quite often drink tap water, or even water straight from their well. Once you are used to the taste, the question of why bother filtering water comes up. There is a lot of discussion in this area, but it comes down to a few main points. Part one of this discussion covers background on water.

What's so Important about Drinking Clean Water?

Water is essential to every main function in your body. From operating the nervous system, building muscle, hydration, proper organ function – nothing in the body works without an ample supply of water. I recently read a great book by Dr. Fereydoon Batmanghelidj called, "Your Body's Many Cries for Water." In it, he talks about the role that proper hydration plays in your body's key systems.

The discussion covers both mental and physical diseases, and how our medical community has spent a lot of time focusing on and prescribing drugs to treat symptoms of dehydration. Cholesterol problems, obesity, blood pressure, asthma, colitis, migraines, back pain, even heartburn can be greatly affected, by proper hydration.

In his book, he goes as far as recommending that people need, on average, ½ ounce of water for every pound of body mass. For example, a 150 pound person (gender doesn't matter) should be taking in 75 ounces of water, per day. That's about 2 ½ Litres, or about 2/3 of a gallon of water. Yes, that is going to make bathroom trips more-frequent, but try it for a week and see if you don't notice the difference!

Okay, so discussions of the need for water tell us about the VOLUME of water needed, but what about quality? Doesn't it just make sense that you would want your body to have the highest-quality water? I'm not going to get into all the potential down-sides of chlorine exposure here, but instead of focusing on the negative, what about the positive? I can't find one – I cannot think of a single "good thing" that can happen from consuming chlorinated water. Don't get me wrong – for municipal supplies, chlorine is essential for DELIVERING safe water to your home.

Once water leaves the processing plant, it can travel through miles of pipe to get to the home – and this pipe isn't new. In the area we live in, most pipe is around 50 years old. Without chlorine, bacteria and a host of other contaminants would make their way into the water and into our homes. But just like you unwrap foods brought home from the store, we should be "un-wrapping" our water, in other words, removing the chlorine. Once the water makes its way to our home, it has done its job.

If you think about why it is added, doesn't it just make sense? Its hard to watch any TV shows lately without hearing about pro-biotics and anti-oxidants in pills, yogurt, drinks and all sorts of things we consume. Ok, so let's think about it – we're taking pills and "eating right" to keep beneficial bacteria in our bodies, and to keep oxidants from doing damage (ie. that's what Anti-Oxidants do!) We then ingest water that is dosed with chlorine – an OXIDANT.

What does the chlorine do? It kills bacteria (all bacteria, both good and bad) and it oxidizes things. Again, this is WHY it is added to the water. Beyond drinking it, we also bath and shower in it. –did you know your body intakes more chlorine in a 10 minute shower than it does in drinking 10 glasses of chlorinated water? It enters the body through pores in the skin and through the lungs when the water is heated and chlorine gas is created. The same thing happens in the kitchen when you do dishes (either manually or with the dishwasher!)

We take all these steps to improve health, then drink and soak in a chemical whose only function is to reverse the exact things we're trying to promote!

Stay tuned for Part Two, when I discuss treatment options. For more information, please see: www.douglasenviro.ca

Green Home Award using Active Air Purification

This is a great story - a story about turning a negative into a positive.

This home had some water damage that lead to a mold problem. After inspections and remediation, the home was treated with a Sanitization Protocol by a NORMI Trained Professional. Included in the package was an ActivTek "InDuct" purifier for each of the home's heating and cooling zones.

This allowed the home to qualify for the NORMI Healthier Home Warranty - a warranty that ensures the home's air quality will remain excellent, and that mold will not return. This is the only lifetime mold warranty I've ever heard of and one of the main reasons we chose to work with NORMI as our training and certifying partner.

The home undertook a drastic transformation and the end result was a safe and healthy home, free from odours and making things much easier for anyone with allergies. The active purifiers are the same brand we use and recommend for our clients - they are NORMI Approved, meaning that the National Organization of Remediators and Mold Inspectors has tested the product and found it to dramatically improve air quality, and in this case even surface sanitization (!) without having negative effect's on the home's occupants.

We have had great successes using these active air purification systems - they are a long way away from the old "ozone generator" technology. they use a system called "ActivePure" to produce a plasma that is circulated by the home's furnace (or air conditioning) system.

Instead of working like a filter and needing to bring pollutants to a single area to attempt removal, the system ACTIVELY goes out and destroys bacteria, yeast and molds on surfaces and in the air. These systems work 24/7 to protect your home, while reducing odours and making things all-around more pleasant for the occupants.

Allergy relief, odour removal, mold prevention - these systems do a fantastic job of cleaning the air.

For more information on the NORMI Certificate of Sanitization program, or to locate a NORMI Trained Professional near you, please see www.normi.org.

For more information on how these systems can be deployed to help your air quality and even to do it in a measurable, objective way, contact Douglas Environmental Solutions - www.douglasenviro.ca

Using Reverse Osmosis for Flower Arrangements

On Friday, I stopped in at my local florist, Shig's Flowers and had a chat with the owner, Marty Shigehiro. I was picking up some flowers for my wife Carri, when we started talking about business. I mentioned I was doing some writing about the different things that can be done with Reverse Osmosis (RO) water once people break free of relying on carrying 40 pound jugs of water back and forth from stores.

When you have a basically un-ending supply of RO water, you don't need to worry about "using it up" so things like making all your coffee, teas and juices all the sudden get you better tasting product - as well as about a 25% savings on those purchases. Since you aren't covering up things like chlorine and dissolved rocks (hard water) when you make something like concentrated orange juice, instead of 3 cans of water, when you use RO water, you get to add a 4th can - definitely an easy to see savings....

At any rate, beyond the "obvious uses" I was talking with Marty about flowers. He suggested there definitely is a difference when you are using reverse osmosis water. The plants are healthier and last longer. It makes sense though - plants are definitely sensitive, and they certainly can't find any natural areas where they'd be growing in chlorinated water!

I guess its probably counterproductive to Marty for me to pass this on, since if you use your chemically-treated hard water from the tap, flowers don't last and you'd have to buy them more often - sorry Marty.... You didn't say anything about keeping this a secret. Until next time!

Want to Go Local?

With the increasing presence of the web, its interesting to see where it is taking local consumers. With the advent of the World Wide Web, companies from all over the globe now vie for the attention of people right in your back yard.

People always need to make a choice - do I buy locally and hope to get the professional service and support that comes with working with someone in the community? Or do I order from China, Australia, the US or some other foreign country, and "hope for the best"???

Obviously, its my opinion you're better off working with a company that specializes in the services you need, is properly trained, and has a local presence to take care of clients when things arise down the road.

Now, local Edmonton area businesses are taking a step to increase their presence on the World Wide Web. Some have chosen to work with Walter Schwabbe at Fusedlogic, "Using our three-step process of research, strategy and implementation, I'm confident we'll be successful in developing a social media strategy to increase the profile of the Greater Edmonton tech community in Alberta and abroad."says Schwabbe about using the Internet to empower a greater local presence.

Douglas Environmental Solutions based out of Sherwood Park is now on Facebook, now has a blog, is on Plaxo, Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn and a number of other social media sites. We're hoping to educate people on the benefits of making sound choices regarding water quality and treatment options. From basic water filter systems, carbon filters, reverse osmosis systems or distillers, even bottled water - there are numerous options that people have if they're not comfortable drinking their tap water.

Whole home filtration options range from a simple water softener to or conditioning systems that also deploy filters to remove sediment, lead, iron, chlorine and chemicals, or other contaminants from the water, there are a lot of options for people these days, and they're using the Internet to research and make informed decisions. As with anything these days, there are the bargain basement models and there are systems that are proven technologies, some even backed by 25 year warranties!

From cost savings to health reasons, making appliances last longer, saving money on heating bills or just having your glassware and silverware look shiny - there are different reasons to consider water treatment and different options available to treat either a single purpose or a broad range of issues facing homeowners today. Most solutions are available both locally and over the Web....

Some aspects need to be done locally, however. Its almost impossible to get a "mail order water test" -sulfur, chlorine and other chemical pollutants in the water dissipate over a short period of time. While they can definitely be found in the tap water in some homes, they may not make it to the lab for identification - leading to a false sense of security, or poor results if you're trying to ensure your family has safe, clean water in the household. Getting your water tested at home is the best possible start to addressing water quality concerns - and THAT is hard to do over the Internet!

Maybe people can now get the best of both worlds - the ability to use the Internet to increase knowledge as a consumer, but still be able to find, trust and work with a local company. Only time will tell! In the meantime, check out the local businesses that are engaging the Internet and fighting to stay in the local community spotlight!

Things You Can Do with Reverse Osmosis

If you know me very well by now, you probably know I'm a big fan of Reverse Osmosis (RO) as a water purification technology. There's a lot of conversation about it lately, a lot of people talking about the pros and cons, and like any technology created by man, nothing is perfect - but RO is very good!

I decided to clear up some of the confusion over what it's all about by starting an article series about the many benefits of RO. Most people think of it as a drinking water source and that's about it. It gets compared to tap water, to bottled water, to carbon filtration, the "pitcher-style" filters and on and on, but instead of focusing on the technology, I want to talk about the many "other" uses of RO - beyond drinking water.

There are so many "alternate uses" that I can't cover them all in one article - what I'll do is give you a few with each posting and talk about them with enough detail so you can see whether or not this would be a good application for you - something you'd want to try yourself.

1. Cooking. This may seem simple, but it's often overlooked. My thinking on this one is, "If I wouldn't drink the water, why would I use it to cook my food?" Think of the ways you can use RO water for cooking....

Steaming vegetables. We use a countertop vegetable steamer. We had used it with tap water for a long time, and the steam generator had a buildup from the dissolved minerals that are left behind when the water evaporates. Since switching to RO, most of those minerals have flaked away and the unit looks like new again. Just the same way your teapot doesn't need to have that white, gunky build-up, any water-using appliances can benefit from RO's clean, pure water.

What about rice? If you look at the hard, dry grains you start with, and then compare those to the fluffy, white grains you end up with, you'll easily see how much water goes into rice. The cleaner, the purer the water you use to make your rice, the better, tastier and healthier your rice will be. This just makes sense - why would adding chlorine or other contaminants do anything but hurt the flavour of one of the tastiest side dishes around?

Same thing goes for pasta. Most people wouldn't think of using 4 or 6 litres of bottled water to make their pasta, but when you have an RO system, there's really no limit to how much you can use! Just like rice, pasta absorbs and takes a lot of water in as it cooks. If the water is clean and pure, you won't have all the chemicals or bits of dissolved rock to taste - if you make home-made pasta sauces, this is a must. So much time, effort and love goes into those sauces that it is almost criminal to poison the flavours by introducing chlorine and other toxic chemicals into your meal. Let your flavours do what they're supposed to do - be delicious!

...instead of focusing on the technology, I want to talk about the many "other" uses of RO - beyond drinking water.

2. Spot Free Rinse. Wait a minute, you're probably thinking... I've heard about that at the car wash, but how can I use RO for this? That's all the spot free rinse at the car wash is - Reverse Osmosis water. It removes any chlorine and any dissolved materials that will create and leave behind water spots when the vehicle dries.

So how do you do this at home? Easy - when you're ready to wash your car, just follow the normal steps you'd always do, but have a spray bottle ready that's filled with RO water. Once your vehicle is clean and rinsed off, use the spray bottle as a final step - mist the entire vehicle and that should be about it. No hand drying should be required and you'll have a virtually spotless finish! (AND - for a LOT less money than doing it at the car wash!)

*** TIP: if you use softened water to make your soap solution, you can save even more money by reducing the amount of soap required by about 75 - 80%! As an added bonus, when you use less soap, you'll not only be saving money, you'll also be less likely to miss some soap when rinsing and you'll waste less water rinsing it away at the end!

3. Humidifiers. This is one of my favourite RO water uses. When we install an RO system into a basement, we always ask the homeowner if they'd like their furnace's humidifier connected. Most people are familiar with the disgusting gunky build-up you see after only a few month's of running the furnace humidifier. That's all the material that's carried along in the tap water that normally feeds the humidifier (yes, it's true - if you drink tap water, just look in your humidifier to see all the "stuff" that you're drinking down in each glass of water, tea, coffee or juice made with it - GROSS!!!)

By running the appropriate water connection from the RO system to the humidifier, you'll be sure that only pure water gets to the system. One of the main reasons humidifiers fail so quickly is the buildup of all the dissolved and carried-along particles in the tap water. If you use purified water (which now doesn't cost you any extra with your in-home RO system) your humidifier will last MUCH MUCH longer, all the while requiring less maintenance and less toxic chemicals to clean!

Ok - that should be enough to get us started. Please feel free to post any questions or comments - and if you have a unique way to use your RO system, send it over to us at info@douglasenviro.ca - we'll reward you for your efforts! (or if you're shy about email, visit us online at: www.douglasenviro.ca and use the contact form to submit your idea. While you're there, make sure to sign up for our free newsletter, filled with ideas and information like this on water, air quality and healthy living!)

Take care and enjoy healthy water for life!


Greg

Arsenic linked to Type II Diabetes

An article was published today in the Americal Journal of Medicine that has linked low levels of arsenic to Type II Diabetes. At concentrations of 0.01 mg per Litre, this colourless, tasteless and odourless contaminant gets into the body where diabetes develops. This was discovered in urine tests - people with high arsenic levels detected were THREE TIMES more likely to have diabetes.

Arsenic is found mostly in western regions of North America, but can be found anywhere. Municipal water treatment plants are required by law to monitor and remove arsenic, but there is no such program to assist people drawing their drinking water from a private well. Thankfully, there are reverse osmosis systems that are certified to remove arsenic as well as a broad range of other contaminants.

This is yet another reason to ensure your well water is treated before consuming it. I had two seperate clients yesterday comment that they drink the water from their well just as it comes out of the ground. One client was talking about how their family has been on that land for a long time and it seemed fine. I had another one tell me they use it for cooking because of the salty flavour it makes nice pasta and vegetables!

When it comes to your family's health, well water is something to be taken seriously. Even if your family has been on the land for a long time, and for 3 or 4 generations have been drinking the water from that well - try to picture what has changed in the world! Around these farms and rural areas, crops have been treated with newer fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and all kinds of chemicals. Our cattle are injected with hormones to make our meat more tender and lean. All of this finds its way down into the ground and into the water table. If you draw your water from the ground - this HAS to concern you!

In many areas, land that used to be used for farms have been purchased and re-zoned for commercial, industrial and residential usages. Commercial and industrial processes can add toxic pollutants. New residential development adds septic systems as well as fertilizers and other chmicals to the water. Increasing levels of air pollution have affected the rain that falls and ends up in the wells.

It is so important to look at the big picture when it comes to your health. Just because your great grandfather drank from that well 75 years ago does not mean that the water is "just fine" now....

Arsenic is a well-researched problem. There is ample information on this element at the EPA, the World Health Organization and Health Canada. For a free copy of Health Canada's Arsenic in Drinking Water Guidelines, email: info@douglasenviro.ca with ARSENIC in the subject line. We can mail a hard copy if you prefer, just send us your name and address.

Bird Flu is Back: How to Protect Yourself in Five Easy Steps

Its been out of the news for a while, but it seems we're not quite done with Bird Flu. The HN51 strain, the strain we're most-concerned with because of its ability to infect both birds and humans, was found in Indonesia, bringing their toll to 112 deaths related to this illness.

In June of this year, a new "H7" strain has also been identified. This is believed to be a mutated strain that can easily cross over to infect humans.

Its been out of the news for a while and many had assumed the threat had come and gone - this is clearly not the case.

As a consultant, I've been asked about pandemic preparedness steps for some local government managers. Below are some helpful tips you can use for your home or office:

1 - Maintain your health.

• Proper diet and exercise. A healthy body, armed with all the vitamins, minerals and enzymes necessary for life, is better at defending itself.
  
• Drink plenty of clean, pure water. Drinking about 1/2 ounce of water per pound is the recommended amount to maintain healthy hydration. eg. a 150 pound person should drink 75 ounces of water. -That's about 2.5 Litres a day, or ten 8-ounce glasses. Water plays a vital role in a healthy immune system.
  We recommend reverse osmosis water to ensure a clean, pure and almost unlimited source. Achieving and maintaining proper hydration using bottled water can be a costly and time-consuming approach.
  Having your own water treatment system allows you constant access to as much water as you could possibly need. Get yourself an inexpensive, re-usable, BPA-free water bottle and keep it filled and with you all the time. Drinking water continuously throughout the day becomes an easy habit, helps stem off hunger and has so many health benefits, it would take hours to read about them all. This is an easy and cost-effective way to improve your overall health and your immune system.
  

2 - Be clean!

• Wash hands frequently with soap and warm water. Research shows that this is all that is required. Antibacterial soaps can come with their own set of problems and haven't been shown to help prevent infection any better than plain old soap and water.
  
• Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze - then wash your hands! Your mother taught you when you were little, and she was right! Not only is it rude to do anything less, it can definitely spread germs.
  

3 - Avoid infecting, and being infected by others.

• Stay away from others as much as possible if you are sick. "Presenteeism" is a new term that has been used to describe the "superhero type" who refuses to take a day off when sick. Typically, these people are trying to do what they think is responsible, but in reality, they're often working at a significantly-reduced capacity, as well as potentially infecting an office full of their peers and co-workers. Offices should encourage sick workers to stay home!

4 - Stay informed.

• Talk with your local health care providers. They can supply information regarding identifying signs of sicknesses and outbreak.

5 - Take precautions.

• Implement "Active" air purification systems. These systems, as opposed to "passive" or filter-based systems do not require air to be brought to the purifier to be treated. They use technology to send 'scrubbers' out to clean the air and surface, sanitizing against germs - including the Bird Flu! They also help control odours and keep the air clear of dust, mold spores, pollen and other airborne pollution that can aggravate allergies.
  

Talk to an indoor air quality professional about your concerns. For a very reasonable rate, your home or office can be assessed and a customized solution can be implemented to handle your current air quality concerns, as well as giving you peace of mind knowing that your family or coworkers are protected from Bird Flu and other allergens and germs.

Greg Douglas, owner of Douglas Environmental Solutions
(www.douglasenviro.ca) is an Indoor Environmental Specialist, certified by NORMI and an active member of the Water Quality Association (www.wqa.org)

Drugs in Our Tap Water

A recent Associated Press probe found that drugs were found in the water in major centres across the US and Canada. This affected both municipal (or "city water") and private well water sources.

Contaminants ranged from pharmaceuticals and vitamins to anabolic steroids. When people take medications, most of it is absorbed by the body and used, but some inevitably passes thru the system and is excreted with the rest of the body's waste materials. In New York, heart medicine, infection fighters, estrogen, anti-convulsants, a mood stabilizer and a tranquilizer found in their public water supply.

Its not just human wastes we're concerned with either - a study done in an area downstream of a cattle ranch found that the water was affected here too. Cattle are often fed steroids like "trenbolone" by an ear implant that slowly administers the dosage to increase cattle size. These typically are the types of anabolic steroids used by bodybuilders to bulk up.

A German study showed that 10% of the steroids passed thru the cattle and quadrupled the levels detected in the ground water. (Side note - kind of scary to think that this already was in the water UPSTREAM too! These steroids were detected in the water even before it reached the cattle, and were found to be FOUR times higher in concentration in the water downstream.)

Although the levels of these medications were typically found in doses MUCH lower than anything you'd receive by taking the drugs directly, long-term exposure is clearly a concern. Another problem with city water arises with the addition of chlorine, typically considered a "catch-all" type of treatment for the millions and millions of gallons that flow thru these plants.

Chlorine is a cheap way to treat bacteria and helps to treat some of these problems. Unfortunately, with these medicines and chemicals, there is evidence that chlorination now makes some pharmaceuticals more toxic! It also creates "trihalomethanes" (THM's) as a byproduct of chlorine disinfection. Health Canada and the World Health Organization regards these THM's a bigger health concern than the chlorine itself.

The results clearly show that these are not only found in water supplies, but they are also not isolated - this was widespread. The studies were performed across the US, and included Canada and Europe as well. They also talked about how to protect families from them. Processes like Reverse Osmosis can remove these contaminants with their technology - the "nuts and bolts" of how this is done is beyond what I'll cover here - but suffice it to say that a typical inline or "jug style" filter setup will absolutely not remove this sort of contaminant. Reverse Osmosis selectively rejects things other than water and washes them away - out of the system and out of your drinking water supply.

True, there are pro's and con's to any technology, there is no "perfect" system, but when you are talking about your health, all options should be weighed accordingly and decisions must be made. Even bottled water isn't a guarantee. Many bottled waters are packaged as "spring" or "mineral" waters. In these cases, they are simply not treated with purification technology to remove these chemicals. We recommend a combination approach of filtration and reverse osmosis. By using these two technologies together, it is possible to prevent these chemicals from entering the home's water supply.

Basically, what it all comes down to is taking control. There is simply just no economical way that city water treatment plants can handle the volumes of water they do, and treat it to the levels that make it clean, pure water suitable for drinking, for bathing, washing dishes or cooking. When dealing with a private well water system, there is nobody to monitor the water and ensure it is safe. There are safe, easy and economical solutions to your water quality concerns.
Consult an expert - find out what's in your water and what you can do about it!

Greg Douglas, owner of Douglas Environmental Solutions
(www.douglasenviro.ca) is an Indoor Environmental Specialist, certified by NORMI and an active member of the Water Quality Association (www.wqa.org)