Narrator (intro):  Welcome to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Indoor airPLUS podcast series. We have a special interview with Sarah Susanka, highly-acclaimed author of the “The Not So Big House series.” Susanka’s “Not So Big” message has become a launch pad for a new dimension of understanding how we inhabit our homes and our planet, and even how we live day-to-day.
Susanka talks with Dave Price, from EPA’s Indoor Environments Division, about the importance of designing healthier homes. Price, an environmental scientist with the U.S.EPA, has more than 25 years of construction experience and developed EPA’s Indoor airPLUS Construction Specifications for new homes.
Let’s listen now as Price and Susanka discuss the critical components and synergy of home design, indoor air quality and healthier living.
Dave: Thanks for joining me this morning, I have been a fan of yours for quite some time, but I think I saw your first presentation for the Pacific Coast Builder’s Conference, where you were the one of the keynote speakers at the Energy Value Housing Awards that the Department of Energy and NAHB puts on, the National Association of Home Builders.  But, I’ve also read your books over the years and as I look back at them there are several central themes that I see that come up over and over again: build better not bigger, design the home to fit the character of the neighborhood, design for human scale, the size of a living space is important, design for a sense of the home and take the focus off quantity and place it on things that affect the livability.  As you look at the way you approach building, how do those themes relate to green building?
Sarah: I see them as really integral, because when people are thinking about building or remodeling the very first decision really needs to be about how to right size that house so you are not building extra square footage you don’t need, but you’re making every square foot really work for you every day.  And so, I often say “not so big” should really be the first step in sustainability because it’s all about using the resources that we have in an effective way.  So, I am not by any means encouraging everybody to live in tiny houses – that is not my goal at all, but to really use the dollars and cents that we have available to make good choices that allow this home that we are building or remodeling to last for centuries rather than decades and to really be something that is going to enhance your life every day. 
Dave: And sure, and also the end result is we have fewer cubic feet to heat and cool, so we are saving energy at the same time.  
Sarah: Exactly.  A “not so big” house is by its very nature energy efficient, well designed, well thought through in all the details and in a really good indoor environment. 
Dave: In your experience with peoples’ interaction with the design process how does design influence health?
Sarah: Well, it’s an interesting thing, it influences it, I believe in a big way, but I think a lot of people are quite unaware of that.  When you design a house that really reflects you, that makes you feel good every day, there is a sense of well being every day when you wake up, that reflects on our own sense of physical health and you can very easily draw the correlation that when you feel inspired by the place that you live, you actually end up feeling better.  But, there’s also the characteristics of the space itself in terms of the indoor air quality, and so forth, that really make that home a place where you literally are physically more healthy than in a structure that’s less well designed.  
Dave: Okay, at EPA we’ve created a “New Homes” label based around Indoor Air Quality, we’ve created a very comprehensive set of construction specifications to help builders create healthier homes with added quality at the same time.  The label, you know, educates consumers on the home’s features such as whole house ventilation, moisture and mold control, radon resistant construction, safer application and installation of combustion appliances, just to name a few, how have you seen these issues, indoor air quality issues, play out in the field in your profession and among your colleagues?
Sarah: Well, obviously they’re tremendously important.  In fact, in my first book, in The Not So Big House, which came out in 1998, I make a really impassioned plea that people pay attention to ventilation.  And at that time I was living in Minnesota where it was really important that as we made our houses tighter that we also put in some sort of air-to-air heat exchanger that allows you still to get fresh air into the house but to save the heat that you’ve just heated all the good air inside the home with so that you can then put that heat back into the fresh air that’s coming in to replace the old stale air.  And, it’s a very little understood piece of house design, but an incredibly important part.  And so, I’m really thrilled to hear that EPA is doing that, because the more information that we can get into the hands of both the professionals that are doing the design and  the construction, but also homeowners so that they understand how critical this is, I think the better. 
Dave: Right.  Well, I am glad you focused on the ventilation aspects, because in the old days, builders didn’t place a lot of focus on where we were getting the fresh air for the homes.  Now, we are tightening up houses and making them energy efficient, which is a good thing, we certainly have to think about fresh air ventilation.  What other changes have you seen in the approaches to designing homes that deal with health and comfort?
Sarah: Well, I think in the last few years, as I said my first book came out in 1998, and in the intervening dozen years; I think people have become increasingly more aware of the importance of energy efficiency.  As energy costs go up, we’ve all become more sensitized to, we don’t want to be heating and cooling air and that we’re then just losing through infiltration through all those cracks and windows, and around doors, leaky, just leaky buildings in general, and so we’ve collectively tightened up the way that we are building, which I think is a really good thing, and we’ve also made those building envelopes more energy efficient in terms of insulation.  What’s not well understood in the general public, but I think is becoming better understood in the world of builders and of architects and designers is that the whole system needs to be thought through and if you just change one element you may end up with difficulties in other places.  And, so there’s been a big education campaign, as you know I know and I’m aware of just getting builders to understand all the component parts that make for an energy efficient and healthy house.  And so, what I am trying to do now is help homeowners understand all those components. 
Dave: Absolutely. And, we hit that concept over and over again in our specifications that the house is a system and you can’t really change one thing without thinking about its effects in other areas.  One of the requirements we have is that when a builder designs a home, that the HVAC contractor has to prepare a room to room load calculation so that we really know what the heating and cooling needs are for each and every room in that house.  And in looking at your work, you do a number of things that affect those load calculations as well…you talk about the importance of trees for shading the roof in the summertime, and overhangs in southern climates to shield the windows from the sunlight and whatever…any other design features that you can think of that come to mind?
Sarah: Well, a big one if you’re building from scratch is just looking at the building orientation and the amount of glass facing different directions…so issues in a northern climate like the one I was in for over 20 years in Minnesota where north glass was a, you know, pretty big problem, it was almost like having a hole in your wall, it was because you’ve got cold winds coming from that direction.  Now, I’m living in the south, I live in North Carolina, the issues related to east and west glass, which is very uncontrollable direct light because the sun is low when it is on the east and west sides, and so you want to minimize those window areas or at least give them some sort of a shading  either with trees, vegetation, or we can even do some shading devices on the outside, usually vertical, that allow you to regulate the amount of direct light that comes into the building.  But, those kinds of things are really starting to look at the very specific microclimate issues of that particular building, which is something I am quite fascinated with and can really help you to tailor a building to its specific site.  It’s not always possible if you’re buying an existing home, but it’s something I think well worth homeowners learning about so they can make their house more energy efficient and more comfortable as a result.  
Dave: Right, well, as you alluded to earlier in your comments, it’s a challenge to get builders to appreciate these nuances that have such an effect on energy efficiency and air quality, and all the other factors in green.  In your experience in working with builders and clients, how do you ensure that they are educated and understand the needs of design and function and health?
Sarah: I really try to get the whole team of people that are putting this house together which includes of course the clients, to understand those various component parts.  I will often actually do a presentation before construction begins to get everybody on board.  It’s a great way of having, you know, sort of having a team meeting in a way and help them to understand that what they are about to engage in is a, the construction of a really energy efficient house and here’s what’s important, and here’s how everybody can work together, just because something isn’t your job, if you see a problem, if you could bring it to the attention of the general contractor so that he can designate the right person to fix that problem, it’s just the working together team building I think, gives everyone a sense that there’s something pretty special here.  The other part is that once the building is done, I think it is incumbent upon the architect or the general contractor to go through with the homeowner what they are going to need to be aware of.  I learned this the hard way when I found one of my clients had basically turned off their air-to-air heat exchanger because they didn’t know what it was, which is obviously a very dangerous thing to do and I think just helping to educate people about the constituent parts of their system makes them a better custodian of that house.  
Dave: I see.  Let’s put you to work as an architect for a minute here.  
Sarah: Okay.
Dave: In looking at your various books, there are a number of design issues for homes that you have addressed that involve aspects of the home that are actually also important to us from an indoor air quality standpoint.  There’s a kind of synergy in some of the design elements that you focus upon and the issues that we address with our air quality label.  So, let me run through a couple of those and maybe we can just chat about those.  One of them is your considerations in the garage design.  You talk about what is the best location for a garage with respect to the house, how many bays should we have in the garage.  We focus on the garage as well, and I have to give you credit because you brought this point up too in one of your publications and that is the issue of the pollutants that come from the garage and enter the living spaces of the home.  So what we do in our label is we have the builder make sure that he or she seals the drywall in any places where it connects with the foundation wall, there’s gasketing of the door that’s the common door from the garage to the living space, and we also require the builder to put a fan in the garage that removes pollutants carbon monoxide that might come from an engine starting up, or just the pollutants that are stored, the gasoline, the paints, the solvents, and all the cleaners that are stored in the garage, that we have found through research that those chemicals actually move into the house because of pressure differentials and so…
Sarah: Right. Very little is understood by homeowners, incidentally. I have had a lot of people say, “oh well it can’t make that much difference can it?” and little understanding that question about pressure differential and that basically that house is sucking a lot of those fumes into itself as a result of not having good sealing. 
Dave: Right, it’s a tough question because many of our building lots are small, and so we can’t always separate the garage from the house.  It winds up being attached.  But, it’s clearly an issue and I know you’ve addressed it too, and we were glad to see that. 
Sarah: Right, I think one of the things that’s really brought this to people’s awareness is there’s been, when you don’t have good ventilation in your existing home, that you end up with having actually an indoor air quality that is lower than the outdoor air, that has really brought to people’s attention, “oh there’s an issue here I really need to pay attention to.”  So, I think that what you’re doing in really helping people to understand where those pollutants come from is extremely important.  
Dave: One of the issues that you address in your design guidance is that using various ceiling heights, overhead beams, and other architectural elements to define or transition from room to room or in separate areas of the house.  It’s an interesting concept and it is just so obvious how it accomplishes the goal of eliminating walls but yet still providing the transition to new spaces and adding the interest in the design.  But I wanted you to reflect on something we look at, and that is, we try to get all the duct work for the forced air in the house within the conditioned space because we know there’s always some measure of duct leakage, and our program requires the ducts to be very tight, but yet there is still some leakage.   And, the best design for us, from an air quality standpoint, is to have the ducts within the conditioned space, so anything that leaks out, as you alluded to earlier, we don’t lose, it’s still the heated air, the cool air, is still in the house.  But, talk about how you might use that as an opportunity to put maybe ducts in a hallway, drop the ceiling a little bit, and accomplish what you want to do and what we want to accomplish at the same time. 
Sarah: Well, what you’re talking about is really, as you say, sort of a happy marriage of two different approaches to design.  I talk about ceiling height variety, because we as human beings are extremely affected by the heights of things, and so you can lower a ceiling in a hallway and it gives you the sense when you move into the room at the end of the hallway, that that room is actually taller, so we can actually…Frank Lloyd Wright did this a lot with ceiling heights…where he would give you the experience of first a little bit of compression and then release into the larger space.  So I’ll use dropped soffits or dropped ceilings around the outsides of rooms, little bit like the brim of a hat, and in hallways, and those dropped ceilings become wonderful spots to locate ductwork as you are describing. And so you can actually keep all of that ductwork very easily within the building envelope and have it be encased within a design feature that actually really improves the character of the home.  So as I say, happy marriage, because they are both doing two different things.  But, frequently, what happens, if you go into areas of the country where a basement is required, for example, you’ll see the sort of miscellany of ductwork across the ceiling.  What I try to do is organize those ducts into a pattern that helps to differentiate place from place within that square footage so that the dropped ceilings containing the ductwork really enhance the character of the space rather than feeling like that miscellaneous mess of duct….
Dave: Exactly.  Right.  
Sarah:  In fact, I wanted to let you know in More Not So Big Solutions, which is my latest book, there is an article about that idea of how to locate ductwork so that it does give some order to the room.
Dave: Oh, excellent, excellent.  Another area you hit pretty hard is the kitchen, has become the focal point of most homes today.  You indicate that the kitchen is a gathering place, it should provide folks with a place to settle in and get comfortable.   One of the things that we’ve seen over time with the “McMansion” concept is the size of the kitchens.  Talk about that for a minute, what you see as far as the sizes of kitchens. 
Sarah: Well, it is not actually just exclusively the kitchen that this has happened to, but rooms have gotten bigger and bigger, because we’ve often, you know, been cramped in smaller kitchens in older homes, and so we go to the other extreme and then make a kitchen that is too large.  I’ve had, I can’t tell you how many people tell me that the kitchen they have had for the last few years in their quote, unquote new “dream house” has been so large they end up just using a corner of the kitchen because it’s too much walking to get from one place to the other.  So we have really indulged in some overkill I think and then the happy medium, so I try to talk about the appropriate proportions for human comfort for getting from one place to another within that kitchen.  
Dave: Well, I kind of I led you down that path because there is an issue that we address, and we are not taking a position on the size of the kitchen.  But, one of the things we have seen is that there has been a somewhat of a movement to larger and larger appliances in the kitchens and you see some designers putting together quote unquote “commercial kitchens…” large large ranges, and large ovens, and what gets paired with these are large ventilation fans that are necessary to remove that tremendous heat load from the kitchen.  And from an indoor air quality standpoint, what we run up against is that if you have any kind of open flame appliances like a furnace or a hot water heater, is when that large fan is turned on, you can back-draft and actually pull carbon monoxide and other pollutants right back into the home.  
Sarah: Yes, it’s a huge issue, it’s a very big issue, and largely unknown to most of the homeowners that are picking those large appliances. 
Dave: Exactly, so what we’ve done as a requirement for our program is if you have combustion appliances, you don’t have an all-electric house, that those appliances be seal combustion, direct vent, they call them in the industry, that they are getting their air from outside for the combustion process, so that the air that is being stolen from the room so to speak and sent up the exhaust fan is not being pulled away from the furnace that needs it for the combustion process or they could be power vented where they have their own fan that enhances that draft so that a kitchen fan can’t overcome it.  It’s really, really unbelievable how large some of those fans, some of them are almost as large as the fans in the furnace cabinet that blow all the air through the house.  
Sarah: I know it, I know it. 
Dave: You can see a fifteen hundred cubic foot per minute fan in the kitchen.
Sarah: Well, I think it is actually another example of the mistaken notion that bigger is better.  I’ve had clients myself who’ve picked the particular appliance simply because it gives the, you know, highest BTU flame or whatever it is, but they actually don’t realize what that is for, you know, do they really need that?  And I don’t think that has often kicked in as a question.  And they certainly don’t understand the amount of air that’s having to be pulled through the house when they turn that fan on. 
Dave: Well, a disconnect that we see, Sarah, is that, you don’t see, remember you mentioned earlier, the team, pulling the team together, we don’t see the HVAC contractor talking with the builder because the HVAC contractor isn’t putting in the kitchen fans.  
Sarah: That’s right. 
Dave: But yet, what that fan does affects the equipment that’s being installed, the heating and cooling... 
Sarah: That’s right. Right, it’s the, it’s a wonderful example of a missing link that I believe the architect, or the designer, or the general contractor if there isn’t an architect involved, really needs to be on top of this and coordinating, and actually helping the client to understand, you know, the implications of their decision, so that they know why, for example, a direct vent furnace is being put in or something like that, so that they get the whole picture rather than just isolated parts.
Dave:  Well Sarah, listen, I could go on forever and keep asking you questions, but we need to wrap this up.  But, I want to thank you so much for your time.  
Sarah: Oh, you are so welcome!
Dave: And so I hope that you’ll be looking for the Indoor airPLUS label, and you’re on top of this, you know these issues…
Sarah: Well, I’m thrilled… 
Dave: I think we’ve got, I think we’ve got a strong advocate…
Sarah:  That’s absolutely true.
Dave: …we’ve got another team member, and I’m very happy about that.
Sarah:  Absolutely true, and I am glad to know you guys are making it so much more accessible to so many more people. 
Dave:  Thanks again for your time. 
Sarah:  Thank you.  
Narrator (outro): Thanks for listening. To learn more about Sarah Susanka and her work, visit www.notsobig.com. And as always, for information about EPA’s Indoor airPLUS program, visit epa.gov/indoorairplus.

Susanka Transcript – Final – 7/21/10