The Eco House: Ideas for a Healthier Home

An excellent program for anyone with a desire to build, add to, or remodel their home with an eye toward sustainable technologies and environmentally-friendly materials, The Eco House: Ideas for a Healthier Home focuses on three aspects of “green” home building: designing and building, inspecting the home, and choosing building materials. The first section follows an architect through the various stages of building an “eco-addition” to a home in the Fremont section of Seattle, focusing on his use of various environmentally-friendly and energy-saving technologies, including recycled, reclaimed, and rapidly renewable materials such as “foam” concrete blocks, cullet (glass), and structural insulated panels. The second section looks at the types of technologies used by Healthy Home Check-Up, a home inspection service in the Seattle area, which conducts a room-by-room investigation for mold, moisture, dust, and chemical hazards. The final section features the products and materials available from the Seattle-based REStore, specializing in building materials such as low-toxic paints and wood finishes that are natural, durable, and repairable. Although it sounds (and feels at times) like an advertisement for the Washington state-based companies featured in the film, this topnotch production boasts excellent informational value, making it a good all-around guide to “green” building. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (A. Cantú)