GREEN Austin Texas

What are VOCs and what can we do to avoid having them in our homes? VOCs are Volatile Organic Compounds, and no, this is not the type of “good” organic we want in our Texas Organic Home. VOCs are pollutants in our homes and can effect the indoor air quality of our homes. The resulting poor indoor air quality can have both short and long term ill health effects. For some great information on VOCs, just visit the United States government’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website and look at the web page on Indoor Air Quality. Since VOCs are emitted by building materials, furnishings and paints as well as other materials in our homes, I am concentrating on these two in this blog. One of the best ways to avoid VOC’s is in the construction or even remodeling process.

There are green cabinet makers who follow green woodworking practices for example that are aware of the problems VOCs can cause in indoor air quality. Among these are Jeff Mitzel at Green Award Custom Woodworking at 5710 E. MLK in Austin, TX (512) 323-6633. Jeff and the other craftsmen at Green Award Custom Woodworking care about our earth and the indoor air quallity in your home enough to use materials that do not off gas in your indoor living environment. They also work by a zero waste policy. Waste ply materials are recycled by local artists, teachers and art therapists as well as in other woodworking projects at the Austin,TX shop. Using locally milled woods, new green products as well as reclaimed woods, the wood shop uses over 70 green raw materials in the creation of millwork and cabinetry. Green Award is also Austin, Texas’ oldest continually running cabinet and millwork shop.

The Transit Oriented Development (TOD) in Leander, Texas had an Open House Saturday February 7th 2009 at the new  Capital MetroRail Leander Station.  The new Swiss train was there as well as CapMetro staff to educate attendees on the new commuter rail service into Austin, Texas.  The first of several Open Houses Capital Metro is holding, this was a well attended event.  The Austin Steam Train came by during the Open House & seeing the 2 trains side-by-side was like the old ushering in the newest technology of 2009.