TWP: Sensitivity Workshop: Bobbie Lively-Diebold's House

[Guest guest]

Sensitivity Workshop

A Retreat in Rural Virginia Thrives on Owners' 'Healthy House' Standards

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20331-2005Jan19.html

washingtonpost.com

By Jeff Turrentine

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, January 20, 2005; Page H01

If the well-meaning souls at +Burton Architecture weren't sure what

Bobbie Lively-Diebold meant when she told them she was " extremely

sensitive " to chemicals, vapors and smells, they learned one day when she

and her husband came to look over some blueprints.

Architect Jim Burton thought he and his associates had prepared. " We aired

out the blueprints three hours before she got there, and we had all the

windows open, " he recalls. " We couldn't detect any smell. "

All the same, within minutes of arriving, Lively-Diebold began to respond

violently to fumes left over from the blueprinting process. Her speech

began to slur. She grew confused. She tried to walk, but could only wobble.

Fresh air revived her. " But the whole episode showed us just how serious

her condition was, " says Burton. " We took a lot of precautions, and they

still weren't enough. "

Lively-Diebold and her husband, Bob Diebold, had commissioned +Burton

to build a three-level contemporary residence just outside of Front Royal,

on a cliff overlooking the Shenandoah River. It would be a place where the

couple -- he a former physicist, she a former employee of the Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA) -- could enjoy retirement in a peaceful, natural

setting. They imagined huge windows overlooking hillocks of pasture on one

side of the house and dense woods on the other; decks off upstairs

bedrooms, where they could listen to the rush of the water in early

morning; extra rooms for visiting children and grandchildren.

But Lively-Diebold knew she couldn't enjoy such amenities if she was

constantly battling sickness. So she and her husband asked +Burton to

build their dream home according to " healthy house " standards. The result,

they hoped, would be a house in which innovative design, careful selection

of materials and state-of-the-art technology safeguard against the presence

of the substances that Lively-Diebold says her system cannot tolerate.

Many of the standards to which this house and others have been built can be

found in " The Healthy House, " a 1989 book by Bower, now in its fourth

updated edition. With his wife, Lynn, Bower founded the Healthy House

Institute in 1992; between the books he writes and the resource center in

Bloomington, Ind., he and his wife oversee (www.hhinst.com), he has devoted

himself to helping individuals find ways to rid their households of

volatile organic compounds, or VOCs.

Healthy houses, Bower says, are not just for people like Bobbie

Lively-Diebold. Many of us, he believes, suffer from indoor air pollution,

without even realizing it. " Sniffles, sore throats, neck aches, all kinds

of symptoms -- there are people who think that a lot of them are related to

indoor air quality, " he says. " The air we breathe is one of the primary

ways we take the environment into our systems. The thinking with regard to

sensitive people is that they're the canaries in the coal mines. It's time

to do something about the problem once the canaries get sick. "

Lively-Diebold, 68, traces the history of her disorder back to a single day

in 1988, when she arrived at work in the EPA complex at Waterside Mall in

Southwest Washington. New carpet had just been installed and was still in

the early stages of " off-gassing, " the term used to describe the release of

chemical vapors from a material -- in this case, the glue binding the

carpet's fibers to its backing.

Immediately, she says, she began to experience the problems that plague her

to this day: disorientation, slurred speech, difficulty breathing and

impaired mobility. Lively-Diebold believes that exposure to the off-gassing

carpet and to other VOCs given off during the building's renovation

irreparably affected her respiratory and neurological systems. She was

among a group of 19 employees who filed suit against Waterside's owners and

managers, citing permanent damage to their health. Of the original

plaintiffs, five, including Lively-Diebold, were eventually awarded

restitution totaling nearly $1 million dollars.

The ordeal, she claimed, had left her with debilitating symptoms known

collectively as multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome, or MCS. Currently,

the medical community classifies MCS as a " syndrome of unknown origin, "

like the more widely publicized Gulf War syndrome or chronic fatigue

syndrome. The absence of a universally accepted definition of MCS, and the

idiosyncratic nature of its symptoms, have made it controversial.

By now, Lively-Diebold is used to cynicism about her condition. It's one of

the reasons she wanted to find " the type of architect who would listen to

your input, not just tell you what you need to have. " When the couple

settled on a site and went shopping for architects, they were impressed by

the way in which +Burton used green principles to effect strikingly

modern designs. " They had already done things that were energy-efficient

and environmentally sensitive, " says Lively-Diebold, " so that was a good

start. " Most important, she says, Burton and the firm's founding partner,

Page , didn't blanch upon hearing her list of requirements. " They

seemed excited and open to the idea. "

Even so, Burton recalls the " steep learning curve " faced by the architects,

builder Whittington, interior designer Timberlake, and the

contractors who had to abandon tried-and-true methods and routines. For

starters, the entire site had to be designated a no-smoking area -- a tough

sell among construction workers for whom coffee-and-cigarette breaks are

sacred. All building materials had to be chosen from preapproved lists;

finding certain items, such as a humidifier air filter that wouldn't emit

mold-conducive warm air, proved difficult.

Of paramount importance was that off-gassing be kept to a minimum.

Chemically inert or natural materials such as stone, concrete, stucco and

wood were used whenever possible. For people with MCS, high-VOC varnishes,

oils, glues and sealants are among a newly built house's most incorrigible

offenders; Lively-Diebold's purview extended even to the oil-based release

agents used to coat the concrete foundation. " I went with my husband to a

job site to check my tolerance, " she recalls. " I just walked around and

smelled them. "

When they prompted a flare-up, she and the building team settled on an

unorthodox alternative: Wesson oil. " It worked just fine, " she says.

(Though for a while, she confesses, subcontractors jokingly referred to the

building as " the salad house. " )

In some cases, as with the stress-skin panels that cover the house, due

diligence entailed all-night experiments, with Lively-Diebold volunteering

as a guinea pig. " I slept with them right next to me, " she explains. " If I

had any problems, they went right out the door. "

The house, now two years old, does not boast its virtuousness

conspicuously. A visitor's initial impression is purely architectural: warm

materials, an abundance of natural light, the balance of elegant forms and

expansive volumes. Next come the design details: Noguchi hanging lanterns

in the entrance hall, svelte Barcelona loungers in the living room, a

Saarinen Tulip table and chairs in the breakfast nook.

The innovations that help make the infrastructure of this house " healthy "

are in no way visible. VOC-free paint, once rare but now widely available,

looks as rich as regular paint. The minimally treated, low-gassing

marine-grade plywood from which the kitchen cabinets are made is

indistinguishable from its standard-issue counterpart. Behind a

plain-looking door on the lower level, filters, ventilators, vacuums and

humidifiers vigilantly defend against airborne pathogens. This system so

thoroughly controls the flow and exchange of air that the house receives a

complete air transfusion every few hours.

" Separation, ventilation and filtration, " says Burton. " It's not a healthy

house if you don't have all three. "

The delicate balance of separate systems, the need for careful monitoring

and enlightened stewardship: If the healthy house invites comparisons to

Earth's environment, it's no accident. Burton was a student of

Mockbee, a larger-than-life figure who devoted himself to promoting

sustainable, socially conscious architecture. The teacher's influence on

the pupil is obvious when the topic turns to, say, hardwoods. For Burton,

the health of the rain forest is directly linked to the health of the

homeowner. Harvesting lumber from sustainably managed forests, he says,

reduces ozone depletion, which in turn makes his client breathe easier.

For Bobbie Lively-Diebold, living in a healthy house has changed

everything. The world outside her door -- with all its marauding chemicals,

pollutants and VOCs -- still has the capacity to make her sick. " But my

body is in a better position to tolerate things, " she says. " This is like a

detox center. A safe place. "

© 2005 The Washington Post Company