Accidentally Green

Making Healthy Decisions That Honor God and Happen to Help the Environment

Why I’m a Fan of Cloth Diapering

When I discovered I was pregnant with Big Brother, I knew cloth diapering would be a part of my future just as an easy way to save money. I researched the different kinds of diapers, the prices, and especially how in the world I could ever keep them clean. Now that I’ve been cloth diapering for well over four years, I have changed and washed more than my fair share of cloth diapers and cloth wipes. I know all about the kind of cloth diapers we chose, an all-in-one pocket diaper with Velcro ... Read more

Is Murphy Oil Soap Safe Enough for my Family?

If there’s one smell that transports me to my past, it’s Murphy Oil Soap. One sniff and I’m back helping my mom scrub the house with the warm, soapy water during summer vacations. Then the longer I smell it, the more I realize it also reminds me of college. Every year I moved in to a new dorm room, my mom would wash out all the dresser drawers and woodwork with Murphy Oil Soap and water. For some reason, the smell lingered for a few days, and now it’s my scent of anticipating new ... Read more

How (And How Not) to Remove Carpet Padding From Hardwood Floors

When my husband and I finally took possession of our new home we discovered a gem: finished hardwood floors underneath nasty carpet in our entire upstairs. We knew we wanted to tear out the carpet as soon as possible, and after hours of stripping wallpaper, priming and painting, we were ready. The results were great in our daughter's bedroom, and not so shabby in the hall and the master bedroom. Then we discovered the floor in our son's bedroom. What a mess. The hardwood looked ... Read more

Learning About Radon Mitigation Options

When you discover high radon levels in your home and get estimates from certified radon inspectors, you’ll learn a lot about radon mitigation options. Choices are somewhat limited, based on the kind of foundation your home has (basement, crawl space, or slab). But, all methods usually involve one of two things: preventing radon from entering your home or reducing radon once it has entered your home. The cost – both of installation and operation – depends on the kind of radon reduction ... Read more

How and Why You Should Hire a Radon Service Professional

Now that I’ve shared what radon is and why it’s dangerous, today I’ll explain the next step. What should you do if you’ve tested your home and discovered you have dangerous levels of radon? The first step is to hire a qualified radon service professional. While it may be tempting to do it yourself, a professional knows exactly what to do and how to do it. If you attempt the work on your own, you could potentially create a bigger problem by increasing radon levels. Let’s face it. Some things ... Read more

My Family’s Radon Mitigation Choice

As I shared last week, my husband and I discovered our new home had high levels of radon during our home inspection process. (We opted for a radon test, and our home inspector performed the test and reported the results.) Because we were aware of the dangers of radon, we wanted to fix the problem before we moved in so our family wouldn’t be exposed to this carcinogen. Using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s state radon contact information, I noted three qualified radon ... Read more

The Basics of Radon

As I mentioned on Monday, Prince Charming and I discovered that our new home has high levels of radon. Mitigation was our next step, but since this is a common occurrence in homes, I'll explain exactly what radon is and why it’s a danger. What is radon? A colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas, radon is extremely toxic. It forms when radioactive uranium naturally decays in rocks, soil, and water. Radon is radioactive and a carcinogen. (Radon’s radiation has enough energy to charge, or ... Read more

Radon’s Special Place in My Heart

Now that my family has moved into our new house, the next month's posts will focus on issues we’ve been dealing with throughout this move. For the next two weeks I’ll explain radon. Though a toxic gas, radon has a special place in my heart. I cut my journalistic teeth on radon back in college. Quite often, Accidentally Green exposés remind me of how my love of helping people through investigative journalism began. During a required earth science class taken in my senior year, my lab ... Read more

Finding a Clean, Green Shaving Cream

“I’m surprised with you,” Prince Charming mentioned one night this past week. “I thought you read labels.” Uh oh. In the frazzled chaos of my family’s move, I went shopping and bought him some new shaving cream. It was the cheapest brand at the bargain store, and I chose the “sensitive skin” variety because I didn’t like the way the other varieties smelled. I never read a single label. And in complete honesty, I had never researched my husband’s shaving cream before, which is a thoughtless ... Read more

Is There a Safe Way to Paint Your Home?

On Monday I shared how most paints are filled with dangerous ingredients. There’s good news, though – there are some safer options. Granted, they’re not completely safe. Just less dangerous. If you remember, volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, are dangerous chemicals used to help paint’s durability and spreadability. VOCs are largely responsible for the awful “new paint” smell. Once the paint dries and the VOCs evaporate, they cause health problems and pollute the ozone (as well as the air ... Read more

Feeling Sick Over the Smell of New Paint?

Prince Charming and I are pretty amazed that God has blessed us with our new house. The outside looks better than we ever hoped for, right down to professional landscaping. But the inside is severely stuck in a time warp. We love it, though – especially because we’ll get to update it just the way we like over the next few years. It’s great to not have to worry about major repairs and take things one room at a time. One of the quickest ways we’ve made rooms feel like home in six short weeks is ... Read more

Four Steps to Safe Wallpaper Removal

Once Prince Charming and I got the keys to our new home, we started working hard to make the house a livable place. Every wall was covered in either wallpaper or border, and nothing was our family’s style. There also was nasty, nasty carpet everywhere, with beautiful hardwood floors underneath. We decided right away that given the fact that we have two young children and a whole lot of stuff that needed unpacked, it would be easier to strip all the wallpaper, paint all the walls, then rip ... Read more

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