My Chemical-Free House

A Guide to Creating a Healthy Home

mold prevention

What to Consider When Building a Tiny House When Chemically Sensitive

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Some preliminary considerations if building a tiny home with healthy materials:

1. Choosing Plans

Because I wanted a more modern style, I bought conventional plans from Leaf House. I wanted to change the layout to make the living room bigger, which entailed changing almost every other aspect of the design.

In a tiny house, one change in the floor plans can change everything. This ends up costing a lot more not just in time spent redrawing plans, but in recalculating all the supplies: lumber, the electrical system, the plumbing system, (custom) window sizes, etc.

A lot of time (months) was spent calculating and ordering supplies. A week was probably spent on window placement and sizes alone.

In order to reduce costs, you might want to start with pre-fab window sizes and design around that. But it’s way more efficient cost-wise to buy plans that are almost exactly how you want things to look.

Changing to non-toxic materials may demand changes to the plans such as changes to the framing in the flooring, changes to the thickness of the walls, ceiling, and floors (since insulation might be thicker), and changes to the weight.

It is possible to build a non-toxic tiny home without changing anything substantial if you use plywood and standard thickness insulation.

Be careful when buying plans, the technical aspects may not be up to scruff. You will need an architect to review the design and moisture management system.

2. A Builder who Understands Chemical Sensitivities

I can’t even imagine building with someone who did not have experience with natural building as well as a complete buy-in to the idea.

Though I now recommend going with someone local and someone very skilled.

If they are open to the idea of green building and having you choose every material I would prefer a skilled builder over a “green builder” but they do have to have complete buy-in to the concept.

3. Trailer Weight

A big SNAFU was that the plans we bought were designed for a trailer rated at 10,000 lbs.

If using MgO board or solid wood instead of plywood, that is heavier that drywall and plywood; MgO siding or HardiePlank is heavier than wood siding; cotton and wool are heavier than foam insulation; and tiles or hardwood are heavier than vinyl or laminate flooring.

A composting toilet is also fairly heavy. Those have to be considered before buying the trailer.

4. Metal v. Wood

Metal versus wood framing is a really important consideration. To oversimplify the issue, metal framing involves using a thermal break of either foam or bubble wrap.

It gets a bit more complicated than that, I recommend talking to an architect if building with a metal frame, it’s tricky.

Another possibility is to build the walls out of metal. For someone who cannot tolerate wood or MgO board this is an interesting new option.

Check out this post to learn more about that.

Consider that having metal walls, including foil inside your walls can aggravate EMF issues and causes a lot of difficulties with moisture management.

5. Mobile Home v. Travel Trailer Registration

This was one of the most confusing aspects of the build. Regulations vary from Province to Province and I’m assuming from State to State as well.

In BC to get your house registered as a mobile home you have to have it built by a certified mobile home builder.

Not getting mobile home certification means not being able to park and live at a mobile home park which is unfortunate.

You can usually get certified as a travel trailer. You must find out the requirement before building. If you can’t tow it legally it is way harder to move a tiny house.

Some tiny houses have RVIA certification which gives you more flexibility with living in RV parks. You can then get house insurance as a mobile home or as a travel trailer or RV.

If you are having someone in the US build it and importing to Canada it has to be RVIA certified.

6. Choosing Materials

Factor in time to order samples and test materials for your own sensitivities.

If you get sick easily, this will be a long and protracted stage as you find out what you can’t tolerate by getting sick over and over. There needs to be time for recovery between testing.

Definitely err on the side of caution as your sensitivities may increase once in a clean environment.

It was a happy mistake that the finishing was left to me after delivery. The testing of wood stains/sealers/paints/tiles/tile sealers/shower materials has been a very long process and it has been much easier to do this slowly over time.

Materials that I didn’t react to when testing but now do include: cotton batt insulation (if you react to new clothing you will react to that), MgO board (I am on the fence about it – a few extremely sensitive people have said there is a slight reaction to it) and I have become much more sensitive to all paints and wood glues.

I provide consultation services to help people navigate this complicated process of choosing materials.

7. Time to Offgas

Many materials and appliances will need to offgas before use.

I didn’t do that well in my house for the first couple months, so I would say even with the best materials there is wiring, there are plumbing and plumbing glue, there is wood glue, there will be some silicone – these all need some time to offgas.

We left the appliances running for a month before use.

I was lucky that I could move in immediately and left the window open for the first few weeks.

Some people need a year to offgas a new house, even when every material was carefully selected.

8. Where to Park it

Many tiny homes are off the grid and use propane to power most systems, which is not an option for most MCS clients.

Propane may be suitable for hot water heating, refrigeration and heat/AC, but the power for your stove/oven, compost toilet, lights, fans, etc will need to be electric.

Solar panels on the roof would only cover a small portion of the electrical. The new Tesla battery will open up some more options for solar in tiny homes.

It is not possible to have a tiny house certified as a mobile home where I live, which excludes the possibility of parking at a mobile home park. It may be possible to park at an RV park if your electrical load is 60 amps or less and you have the proper plug for an RV park. You will also need RV sewage hookups.

Having a tiny home certified by RVIA can have benefits in allowing you access to more RV parks. In many rural places, you can have a tiny home on your own land, either legally or “just squatting”, set up with electricity and water.

Separate posts on tiny house systems, composting toilet and greywater, custom non-toxic shower…

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Corinne Segura is a Building Biologist with 8 years of experience helping others create healthy homes.

Did you find this post helpful? If so you can buy me a coffee to support the research behind this blog. Thank you!

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Building a (Non-Toxic) Shower in a THOW

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This post contains affiliate links. Upon purchase, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Non-Toxic Shower Options that I Considered

Tiles

My first plan when designing my tiny house was to use tiles. But because grout without additives (plain Portland Cement) may not hold up in the long-run to mould or to cracks in a mobile house I decided against it.

Even with the recommend Schulter shower system, I still wasn’t confident that the area around the drain would hold up to cracks when the house moved. This would be better in a non mobile tiny home.

(I go through non-toxic tile options in the post on bathrooms)

Tadelakt

A non-toxic waterproof finish, tadelakt is a beautiful option. But in my house on wheels all the plaster has cracked.

We came up with some ideas to give it a little flex included – adding glue to the plaster and maybe a mesh underneath on the wall, but no one had tried this yet in a mobile home so it was big risk and I don’t think it’s a good idea. 

In a tiny house (not on a trailer) this would be a good choice for many people.

Though it requires a lot of upkeep. (For the base/floor you still need tiles, fiberglass or metal) otherwise it tends towards mold.

Make sure you can commit!

Fiberglass or Acrylic

These will last a lifetime without getting mouldy but if you get a company to install it they need to use their own adhesive, which is toxic.

Fiberglass offgasses and most highly sensitive people say they react to it.

Acrylic is much more tolerable and should become odorless quite quickly.

If you use one of these showers in a new build you have to design the size of the bathroom around that (I didn’t!).

You can offgass them outside until they are ready.

Use AFM Almighty Adhesive to install them.

Solid surfance showers are beautiful and non-toxic but I have not found one with a non-toxic glue.

Other Options 

In a larger house, polished concrete might work really well, if you can find someone who can do that finish on walls and tight spaces.

Glass walls are something to consider.

An outdoor shower could be made of cedar, glass or concrete.

More discussion on these materials in my post on bathrooms.

My Shower for Tiny Houses on Wheels (Could work in Trailers, and RVs too)

It took four people, five months to design, make and install a totally toxin-free shower for my tiny house on wheels that will:

-not get moldy
-last a very long time
-and hold up in a tiny mobile home (that flexes when it moves)!
-not aggravate my chemical sensitivities

But we did it! We were this close to giving up and building an outdoor shower. In the end, the shower enclosure was made of aluminum and stainless steel with a zero VOC adhesive.

A basin with 2-inch sides is made of stainless steel and the pipe in the center is welded in so will never leak around the drain (Stainless is going to hold up better than aluminum in the basin).

I would have done more of a grade and a higher lip on the basin if I did it again.

Underneath we used pieces of acrylic and Butyl Sealant Tape to support the grade.

There are two sheets of thin aluminum panels that wrap around the three-wall shower enclosure.

The first piece of aluminum wraps around the three walls (no seams in the corners) and overlaps with the basin at the bottom (will never leak at that point).

The second piece of aluminum overlaps over the first piece and goes up to the ceiling. A vent is right in the middle of the shower on the ceiling to reduce moisture.

The shower curtain is this EVA non-toxic one (had a slight plastic smell but was fine for me) (other curtain options to try are polyester or polyethylene – or, even better make a glass door).

My curtain has magnetic pieces that stick to the walls – to prevent water from splashing out onto the tiles which are not 100% waterproof (magnetic strips from Bed Bath…….and Beyond!)

After testing many adhesives with no luck I finally found Almighty Adhesive by AFM and had no reaction at all to it even when wet!

The problem of finding an adhesive was holding up the project for months and I was so excited to finally find this. It is also the only adhesive (including silicones) I have ever smelled that really is non-toxic.

Even a regular non-toxic white glue smells more than this stuff.

Around the edge of the aluminum will be sealed with AFM caulk which does take about a week to offgas.

I really want all the edges to be sealed. Strangely (happily) I no longer find this caulking to be problematic.

So there you have it! A shower that will never leak or become moldy and with no toxins! 

Notes:

Another thing to consider is to weld all the parts together. See Tiny Green Cabins stainless steel showers if you are interested in that route.

The custom aluminum and stainless cost 800 CAD + installation which took 2 people all day. (We had to re-do some plumbing though which took longer than expected)

For individual help on choosing the best products and materials for you and your home you can schedule a consultation with me.

Corinne Segura is a Building Biologist Practitioner with 8 years of experience helping others create healthy homes.

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Camplite by Livin’ Lite – My Semi-Custom Aluminum Trailer

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I spent weeks and weeks searching for a chemical-free trailer suitable for people with MCS. I finally came across a trailer made almost entirely of aluminum. I had it made based on the suggestions in this EI Wellspring article.  This post is an update on that article and I will add some suggestions for improvements.

Camplite no longer makes these trailers with all-aluminum interiors however you can custom make a trailer from scratch along these lines and you will have a long-lasting trailer. 

This post contains affiliate links. Upon purchase, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

The 11ft trailer is light & can be towed with my Ford Ranger

The 2014 Camplite travel trailer comes with no wood, no steel, and can be made without any vinyl or toxic upholstery. 

The walls, (inside and out), and the cabinets and benches are aluminum with a baked-on finish. The insulation is foam but is sealed off by the aluminum (aluminum is a VOC barrier). 

Custom table and Natural Latex cushions

I chose the 11FDB (11 x 7-foot interior) which still feels very spacious to me and has a washroom (toilet and shower), a kitchen (sink, fridge, room for hotplate) and is wired for 30 amps.

This still had a chemical smell when new. The amount of time it takes to offgas depends on the temperature and your sensitivities. I think after 6 months it was good but was not totally scent-free. I recommend using an ozone generator to speed up the offgassing (more on the safety of using ozone here).

Here are the specifications that I had it made to:

  • NO Azdel cabinetry: Opt for aluminum cabinetry  (an extra 279 USD). As of 2016 they are saying that part of the cabinets are Azdel, and they are very reluctant to leave this out. 
  • NO insulation under the floors – for a chemical spray-on insulation that is very thin, 1000 USD did not seem like a good deal for this option. 
  • Aluminum Floors – As of 2016 they will not leave bare extruded aluminum floors. 
  • NO Azdel interior – Replace with aluminum walls (for 1000 USD). As of 2016 they are only offering Azdel walls from what my clients have said. This is a real shame as this is the only company I knew that made all aluminum interiors. 
  • NO propane furnace/AC.  I use an electric heater and portable AC/dehumidifier. The white exterior keeps it pretty cool inside, even in the summer sun. If I did it again I would definitely keep the propane furnace/AC. Not having it makes un-sellable to a non-MCSer. You can always remove the propane tanks off the front of the trailer and the little bit of added glue and plastic will not be significant.
  • NO propane range. I put in my own 2 burner cooktop (electric). Again, leave this one in and put your own hotplate on top since it folds down underneath the counter and is good for resale. I currently cook everything in an Instant Pot and release the steam outdoors to keep humidity low.
  • NO Formica (laminate): The only countertop option they had (for the 2014 model) is Formica with styrofoam on the inside. The dinette was also Formica. As of 2016, they use solid surface countertops which may be safe.
  • NO blinds, valances or screens on the windows or doors. No awning. No fold-out tent.
  • NO cushions – mine are custom Natural Latex (non-toxic, but see my warning here). I would have got them to leave the cushions, screens and blinds and store it somewhere else. In case you need to sell it to a non-MCSer. 
  • NO caulking. I asked for no caulking, but they did use it anyway. No caulk is not a good idea. You could send them a non-toxic one for them to use if they agree to this.
  • YES to the propane/electric fridge which vents to the outside.
  • YES to the propane water heater, like the fridge it is totally vented to the outside from what they tell me and from what the EI article suggests. Running short on amps here so if you want hot water…. 

If you are ordering one make sure to also specify not to put the black stuff (spray-on insulation ) under the seats, and not to glue plastic on the inside of the cabinets. They should be all aluminum.

Further modifications made by me to remove toxins:

  • Replaced the vinyl shower hose with a metal shower hose. This was super easy to do and didn’t require tools.
  • Wash the whole thing down to remove factory residues.
  • I removed the laminate countertops and replaced with a wooden one that I had made. The wood didn’t hold up and I recently replaced it with an aluminum countertop. The cost of which was about $250.
  • I removed the cabinet doors and they offgassed outside for 6 months. They don’t seem to smell when sniffed outside.
  • I replaced the laminate/styrofoam table with a custom cedar table that holds up well in the humidity when the trailer is not being used.
  • I placed EVA Foam over the aluminum floor. The ones with faux wood printing had a strong odor that smelled really toxic. Some EVA mats were found to give off formamide, so that may have been the problem.  I removed the faux wood mats. These EVA mats are a better choice as they are formamide-free (as well as BPA, phthalate and flame retardant-free).

This trailer was not cheap….coming in at around 27K with all the modifications (+ taxes). It took 13 weeks from the time I ordered it to the time it was delivered; I was told it would be 6-8 weeks, so give yourself a lot of time for the order…. and some time for offgassing.

All trailers are going to contain some amount of caulking and glue in the pipes and wiring. This trailer is the least toxic option that I know of. Older trailers with insulation tend to have problems with mold over time… Camplites are very good in this regard, they have a sandwich type of insulation: aluminum-styrofoam-aluminum, laminated, so condensation will not happen in the walls and there is nothing that can mold in the walls. They are built to last.

Corinne Segura is a Building Biologist with 8 years of experience helping others create healthy homes.

Did you find this post helpful? If so you can buy me a coffee to support the research behind this blog. Thank you!

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