Our $500 Facelift - Part 2 - Feeling Good

House paint can be pretty nasty, and the toxicity is largely due to the presence of V.O.C.s (volatile organic compounds) releasing chemicals into our air, impacting our health and increasing smog.

This is why, simply put, paint is stinky.

Most surface coating manufacturers now have low V.O.C. “green” collections, while some, such as Safecoat in the U.S., make nothing but low or no V.O.C. coatings.

Environment Canada’s Environmental Choice Program slaps an Eco-Logo on products which meet strict requirements including ceilings on the levels of V.O.C., making it a bit easier when shopping. It gets complicated for me when I have to put my money where my mouth is. Many paint companies, particularly those selling to the eco market, seem to consider “safe” or “healthy” products to mean “exclusive” and therefore charge premium prices.
It can be tough to keep your integrity without being fleeced. Realistically, how much extra am I willing to pay for something that should be the norm?

There are three outlets for paint in St. Thomas. I wasn’t going to bother with hardware stores because I am trying to learn from my mistakes and, therefore, thought we should be establishing a relationship with a company that was going to do more than sell us paint one day, and a steel brush with which to remove it the next.

Our first stop was PARA Paints; I was armed with room measurements and a criteria document from Environment Canada.

As soon as we uttered “green”, we were escorted to a collection called “Boomerang”.

A clever concept offered by many paint manufacturers, this is a recycled product made from re-tinted leftover paint. Available in a limited, but not unattractive palette, it wasn’t what we were looking for, but something to check off my “this company should be like this” list.

If Boomerang was within our colour scheme, at $15 per 4L can, this collection would have saved us roughly 65% on paint costs. It would also satisfy my minimal toxin requirement as all latex interior paints stocked by PARA are low V.O.C., with plans in the future to make them even lower.
At 90g/l for Boomerang, and 83g/l for all other PARA collections, the V.O.C. count is well within government 50g to 150g parameters (the variance is due to finish texture, from flat at 50g to gloss at 150g).

In addition to the $$$ savings, the recycling concept would have meant a substantial “green” plus - as Boomerang appears to be the only recycled paint made in Canada, it’s our water table that old paint is being diverted from.

Interestingly, in the blurb you can click to above, Laurentide Inc. claims "the V.O.C. content of Boomerang® brand water-based paints (90 g per litre) is significantly lower than Environment Canada’s 2008 standard, 250 g per litre for recycled paint" when in fact the maximum allowable amount is 150g. So, still very good but a little over zealous.

Since PARA doesn’t produce a special low V.O.C. collection, the bottom line for us was we were able to choose any colour and pay regular prices. I also like the fact that PARA has been 100% Canadian since it’s beginnings in 1915.

Check, Check, Check – we were sold and my checklist was mostly complete.

Then we were shown something called an “Enviro-Kit”, by Dynamic Paint Products in Mississauga. It consisted of the usual roller, roller brush, edger brush and tray, but the difference was that the tray was 100% recycled plastic and the edger brush had a replaceable head.

Final check.

So, PARA provided affordable, low V.O.C. paint in the colours we wanted with recycled supplies all backed with, quite honestly, superlative service and advice.

Our next big job is the basement floor with its on-going saga, and our weeny woony loo, it’s wallpaper torn off and the toilet still not cooperating.
I thought I was ready to start planning that, before our neighbour Laura showed me a magazine from Australia which featured a toilet with a sink in the top which directly collects the grey water for flushing …
Hmmm …