HOW TO BECOME A SALVAGE BUILDER, MINER, OR HUNTER.
If you have seen how incredible the look of vintage lumber is on a wall, decorating as well as using for floors, reducing the toxins, imports, & low-quality building materials w salvage makes cents.
DEC 06, 2024
How much will you pay for shitrock on the walls, materials that outgas dangerous chemicals that you will inhale and make part of your body just by living in a new house, tiny or large? If you do not know, this happens when you move into a new home, especially a tiny house with a limited air supply. How do you limit the chemicals and toxins in the new houses? Wait for 3-5 years for the outgassing to complete itself before living in them, which, given they are only built to last for ten to twelve years, the plastic seals on the exterior and roof will leak by then if not kept out of the weather and sun. It is sad when the industry refuses to recognize the short life of the materials they use to create cheap tiny houses and mobile homes.
Worse for anyone who lives in one full time is the health issues that result from toxins in the houses that could be prevented, and the lack of fresh air due to few adding the necessary but costly air exchangers that preserve the heat and cold in the house while flushing out the stale air to get fresh oxygen in the house. If not, there is a serious issue with hypoxia in tiny houses and RVs that contributes to mental decline and physical ailments. Since you will not sleep well when you lack fresh air, your days for the kids and adults will be less energetic, and you will be more prone to being tired and sick due to not having a healthy environment to live in.
In a world quickly filling up with tinier homes, and most are not reviewing the reports and not listening to the growing calls for concern over the resulting health issues, few connect the dots to find the solutions until the damage is severe. Respiratory problems, mental clarity, hormones being messed up due to the endocrine disruption caused by the outgassing yet, because it is invisible, the lack of oxygen undetected, and the resulting loss of energy and health subtle as it disappears gradually, most know nothing of the cause of their health issues after the first year in a new tiny RV or Home, mobile home, or the ever-growing modular homes that are just big versions of toxicity living.
It is possible for those who care and want a healthy tiny house to get one built, but you will need to be sure these issues do not arise for you. You must adhere to using materials inside the house that will not outgas the plasticizers, vinyl chemicals, paint chemicals, and polyurethane finishes that cure. At the same time, you live there, which means outgassing the remaining chemicals in the fibers of the wood or even carpet. Why is this not reported on more? Why are these issues not discussed on panels at the national tiny home manufacturers? Why is this the subject to stay silent on if you build the trailers, RVs, and tiny houses on wheels that are virtually just tiny mobile homes that will lose value faster than the health of the people living in them who bought them off the lot new, fresh, and full of invisible chemicals to inhale and absorb, sadly most being carcinogenic and even deadly in the long run. Cancer can be overcome by the victims of this abuse and failure to inform, but why should they have to experience the possible death cancer causes over being stupid?
Since I no longer build tiny houses for anyone, I can speak freely and not be accused of false prejudice as if I am exposing these issues soley to promote my brand of dwellings. I created Tiny Texas Houses to be the antithesis of “Tumbledweed Houses.” That was my name for the first of the fad tiny house makers that were truly examples of how to rip off people pretending to teach them how to build tiny houses on wheels. That failed due to the many misleading aspects of their presentation and the owners misrepresenting things early on, which cost them their reputation and, sadly, cost many who followed him. But it was their life savings and health that suffered. Many other Toxic-House-box on Wheels have done worse, creating more chemicals while the fad was hot. Even a Dr. Vinyl that made the entire house out of vinyl’s toxicity would definitely put most people into a complex nose dive with their hormones and health in a matter of months. I never heard if anyone was stupid enough to buy and live in one, but I would love to hear from those who did. It would be a sad story, for sure.
I have published many articles on living in tiny healthy houses and what to watch for, but the industry is in denial and refusing to address these issues. Most manufacturers will just shut down and go out of business, having taken their profits and moving on once the public figured out, somebody screwed them over for profits. If you have health issues in the respiratory tract, hormones, and cancer but have not investigated the cause and have lived in tiny houses, or new mobile homes for that matter, you should look into this as the cause and warn others before they too suffer. I know of a mother and daughter who got matching tiny mobile homes, and both got cancer, one of the breast, the other lymphoma. This is serious, and it only took three years of living in them to trigger the cancer. Stop the madness now. Cheap housing is not worth your health later in life.
For those who want to downsize into a healthy lifestyle, please consider using as many healthy materials as aged lumber, not plywood, particle board, and composites full of chemicals. Do not add the paints and chemical-laden products that will outgas over the first three years after they are made, leaving the plastics brittle once the chemicals that make them flex leach out into the air, your lungs, your body, and your brain. Tell others who have made the mistake, are sick, and do not understand why, yet they live in these homes.
Now, you are the one who now knows what many do not. Please share if you care about those you love and friends who may be sucked into the downsizing without understanding the potential downfalls of that lifestyle in a toxic box rather than a healthy tiny house.
Brad w. Kittel
brad@tinytexashouses for more information but do read more on this substack as there are several articles on toxic conditions inside tiny houses.