6 Non Toxic Materials You Can Buy At Home Depot (That Are Also Somewhat Ethical)
In this episode of Slow Homes, Mette goes on location to Home Depot to find some non toxic materials. It wasn’t easy but she came up with 6. Can you think of any more?
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Read the Transcript:
Mette Aamodt: Hey folks, welcome to the Aamodt/Plumb YouTube channel. This is our new series on Slow Homes where we give you tips and advice for creating a home that is good, clean, and fair. If you’re new to our channel, hit the subscribe button so you don’t miss any of the videos that we put out.
I’m Mette Aamodt, co-founder of Aamodt/Plumb Architecture, Interiors, and Construction. Today I’m going to be showing you six non toxic and mostly ethical building materials that you can buy at Home Depot. Home Depot has not sponsored this video, nor have any of the products that I’m going to show you.
(Here you can see a guy trying to fit that insulation into a teeny tiny car.)
Now, let me start by saying that I don’t really like Home Depot or Lowe’s. These stores are really geared towards DIY homeowners. Maybe someone like that guy. The biggest thing Home Depot has going for it is convenience, and it’s kind of like the big grocery store. So gone are the days where we had a butcher, a baker and a greengrocer. Now what most of us have is, in this area it’s called Star Market or A&P or whatever.
Our site supervisors and sub contractors really prefer not to buy their materials at Home Depot and avoid it if they can. Instead, they like to go to the local lumber yard, tractor supply, electrical and plumbing supply stores. Oh, and the local hardware store. I love going to the local hardware store. I love walking up and down the aisles and browsing for things. I’ll save that for another video though. This video is for those of you who don’t have access to a local hardware store or a local lumberyard.
Now, let’s go shopping.
FSC CERTIFIED PLYWOOD
Okay. The first item one our list of non toxic materials is FSC certified plywood. I looked it up online and Home Depot has Columbia Forest Products plywood. Now I just have to find it. It took me a long time to find this one. Here’s the tag, says FSC on it right there, but there isn’t really any other proof. It used to say it on the edge of the board, but here I can find it on a sticker.
So what’s good about this plywood is that it is FSC certified. You do have to specify that though if you’re ordering it. Not all Columbia Forest Products plywood is FSC certified. It does have formaldehyde free soy-based adhesive, so that’s another thing that’s great and it comes from North America. What’s bad about it is that, as you can see, it’s totally mangled. It is seriously trashed, and it’s going to be super difficult to find any pieces that are worth using. It’s also pretty expensive, $46 a sheet compared to the other ones here, the cheap ones that are like $20 a sheet. It’s not really selling itself here with the presentation and so forth. You have to really want it. So you can get it at Home Depot, but I recommend you inspect every single sheet.
The second product is cellulose insulation. Home Depot carries this one called Green Fiber. Cellulose insulation is a plant-based insulation. It’s made of paper, usually recycled paper. This one says 85% recycled content, so it’s a renewable resource. It’s a very low toxicity. I’m not going to call it non-toxic, but I’m not afraid to touch it with my hands. It’s soft. Doesn’t smell any worse than anything else in this aisle that’s really stinky because there’s a lot of foam. They use boric acid as a fire retardant. Now, that is a bit controversial. Again, it is low toxicity, but not no toxicity. It’s much less toxic than the majority of other insulation options out there. In a dense packed application, it can perform just as well as many of the other more toxic options.
This one is made in the USA, which I’m using as a proxy for being ethical. Now, the reason for that is that at least we have laws in the US protecting workers, so in this video, when I say ethical, what I mean is it’s made in the US.
CEDAR SHINGLES
Now, here’s a product that’s been around for thousands of years. How do you like that for a track record? These are cedar shingles. This is the best one Home Depot carries. It’s their premium red cedar used for interior and exterior, made in Canada. This is the most expensive one that they have here. You can see $185. This is just beautiful, pure cedar. Smells great. Just want to keep smelling it.
They have a couple of other products around here and this one looks pretty good. This says WASKA. These are factory coated cedar shingles. Now, on the bottom right it says 100% green choice, natural insulator, noise reducer, anti-termite, renewable, nontoxic. Yup, I agree with that. These say they are sourced from FSC certified forests and naturally self-preserving without harsh chemicals. Product of Canada. Now, these have been pre-finished. When I smell these, it doesn’t quite smell as good as the plain cedar ones. So cedar shingles are a completely non toxic material as long as you don’t stain or paint them, and you really don’t need to stain or paint them. This is really just an aesthetic effect. Depending on what the stain is that you use, there may be some level of volatile organic compounds.
Now this box of shingles is a $110. That tells me it’s a pretty high quality item, compared to what we’re going to see over here, which are at $49 a bundle and $65 a bundle. I don’t know if these are the same thing or not, but I’m looking at this. You see that black stuff on there? That is black mold. Now, I don’t think this is a problem of the cedar shingle itself, but in the way that it’s been handled and transported and stored, probably by Home Depot. So you see those expensive ones over there in the nice boxes? That box was a little crushed, but those boxes look pretty good. Those are pretty good, stored in cardboard, which is breathable, as opposed to these stored in plastic, which is not breathable and probably led to the mold problem, so stay away.
DALTILE
Next on our list of non toxic materials is Daltile. Home Depot does carry Daltile, although I’m seeing that their selection is very limited and they don’t have the nice ones that we like. They just have some ugly ones that I will show you in a minute. Daltile is an American company and all of their products are made in the US. We use Daltile all the time in our projects. They have some beautiful options, not necessarily the ones that they have here, but they have a basic 3 x 6 subway tile and another one called Rittenhouse Square that’s a 2 x 4 subway tile that’s really nice.
Ceramic and porcelain tile are all natural. They are made from clay. They are naturally non toxic, and Daltile has a cool promo video that I’ll link down below that talks about a lot of the same issues that we’re concerned about with Slow Homes.
Daltile is already super affordable, and with tariffs on the import of Chinese tile – porcelain and ceramic tile – at 130%, there’s never been a better time to buy American-made Daltile. Now, I’m just going to jump on my computer and show you the ones that we were recommending. Home Depot does carry online the Daltile Rittenhouse Square. It comes in a ceramic. The tile itself is 2″ x 4″, and it comes on a 12 x 12 inch mosaic. I also happen to have a sample of it right here in my office so I wanted to show you. It comes in matte and glossy. This is a glossy one.
NATURAL CORK
The next non toxic material I’m looking for is natural cork. I had to ask someone to help me and this is what the guy directed me towards, ‘Eco Cork Foam’. I’m going to call that an oxymoron because eco and foam in my book never go together. This is actually a super thin layer… No, wait a minute. I don’t think there’s any real cork on this whatsoever. If there is, it’s a microscopically thin layer. The rest is just foam, so I’m going to jump on my computer again and show you that Home Depot does actually carry 100% natural foam – oops! yeah, they carry a lot of foam! – 100% natural cork. You are going to have to order it online.
This is the all natural cork that I was looking for in the store. It comes from Portugal, which is obviously not in the US, but it is in the EU, and they do have strict labor laws there as well. It comes in this half inch thickness. They have it categorized as a tile underlayment, but you could use it for all kinds of things. So this is a renewable resource, harvested from trees, and completely non toxic.
COPPER PIPE
The last of non toxic materials we are looking for is copper pipe. It is the material of choice for plumbers and has been used for our pipes, our water supply for hundreds of years, and I love that. So this one has blue text on it. It looks black to me, but that means it’s for potable water. It’s thicker, heavier, and more expensive. These over here (this is what I picked up first) this one has red text on it. That’s okay for making decorative pipe shelves. That one’s only $10.85, but the one for potable water is $15.32. These look like 4′ lengths. Both types with the blue text and the red text say made in the USA. I prefer to go with materials that have a really long track record that have been used for a really long time as opposed to the new products or the ‘wunderkind’ of building products. Remember that lead paint and asbestos were those wonderful new products at one time. And the problem is that we don’t find out until 30 years later what the impact is and if people are dying or not. So I prefer copper pipe to the alternative, which is PVC.
These days, PVC is probably the most common material used for piping because it’s the cheapest, but it is full of carcinogens and endocrine disruptors. If you want to know more about what’s so horrible with PVC, just let me know in the comments below and I will make a whole video just on that.
CONCLUSION
So there you have it folks. These are my six non toxic materials, that are mostly ethical, that you can buy at Home Depot. Now I was only able to pick up three of them in my cart here. I’ve got the insulation, the cedar shingles and the copper pipe. Everything else I’m going to have to get online or at a different location.
Do you have experience with any of these non toxic materials or do you have any suggestions of other things you can get at Home Depot that are non toxic and somewhat ethical? If so, please put it in the comments down below and don’t forget to subscribe while you’re down there. If you like this video, please let me know. I’m only just starting out on this YouTube journey and I could really use some positive reinforcement to help me keep going and making more videos like this because I think that there’s some great content here that is going to be really helpful for people to live better lives and lives that are good, clean, and fair. See you next time.
SUBSCRIBE TO THE AAMODT / PLUMB YOUTUBE CHANNEL HERE TO GET MORE VIDEOS ABOUT CREATING A SLOW HOME
Here are the links mentioned in the video.
FSC Certified Plywood –
Columbia Forest Products: https://www.columbiaforestproducts.com/product/purebond-classic-core/
Cellulose Insulation –
Greenfibre: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Greenfiber-Low-Dust-Cellulose-Blown-In-Insulation-19-lbs-INS541LD/100318635?MERCH=REC-_-rv_gm_pip_rr-_-300584221-_-100318635-_-N
Cedar Shingles –
https://www.homedepot.com/p/18-in-1-P…
Daltile –
Promo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNlzC…
Rittenhouse Square Tile: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Daltile-Rittenhouse-Square-White-12-in-x-12-in-x-6-mm-Ceramic-Mosaic-Wall-Tile-0-8333-sq-ft-piece-010024BJMS1P2/203719337
Natural Cork –
https://www.homedepot.com/p/QEP-150-s..
Copper Pipe –
Mueller Industries: https://www.muellerindustries.com/our…
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Mueller-S…
