Business Rural Winter 2021

The team at Health Based Building is driven by a simple and powerful philosophy: To educate consumers about the elements in building construction that really bring about healthy outcomes. Applying a science-backed understanding of what needs to exist in a built environment for it to really be a healthy place to live, work and play in is the only way, Health Based Building says, to get through the barrage of modern-day terms bandied about by product manufacturers and promotors, terms such as green, eco-friendly, sustainable, that lead consumers to believe what they’re getting is a healthy outcome. Robin Curtis from Health Based building says: “It’s a systemic and wide problem we have in the building sector, where powerful entities and in luencing groups supporting Petro-chemically derived products have such a grip on promotion of building materials that impact the planet and human health. It plays through to product access, building company alignment to use of speci ic products and it makes it so di icult for home-owners, wanting to live inside the healthiest of environments, to get good unbiased information.” And it was this frustration and concern that led to the creation of Health Based Building and construction of the Foreverbreathe Demonstration Home using the product and system technologies the company advocates. We spend up to 90% of our time in homes and buildings, and an overwhelming percentage of products and materials used in the external objects, the walls, loors, paint, soft furnishing are either synthetically sourced, chemically loaded, highly processed or treated. In combination these materials can be promoted as energy saving, healthy and sustainable when in fact they are contributing to known health impacts. Health Based Building has developed a new standard in high performance building, it calls the Foreverbreathe™ Speci ication. The simplest way to describe the speci ication is that it brings together a suite of high-performing and sustainable building materials which do not contain harmful chemicals. “Of most importance, the speci ication sets up an understanding of what not to bring to a building environment.” Health Based building is experiencing a strong ground-swell of support from people questioning the approach to building and wanting to understand what is required if the desired outcome is a healthy environment, the best way to support this is by education. “Not by making people feel guilty for assuming what is on o er in terms of building materials and processes in this day and age is going to be good for them to live in. They don’t know, what they don’t know. Education is the only way to bring about signi icant change.” Health Based Building o ers a range of product-lines, all ethically sourced and manufactured, including Foreverbeech™, sustainably harvested New Zealand red and silver beech, Earthen™ radiata pro iles free from chromium and arsenic treatment, Foreverbreathe™ oil and paint coatings and Terra Lana wool insulation. Terra Lana insulation manufactured from New Zealand wool is embedded with hygroscopic performance which describes wools unique ability to evaporate moisture via warm air entrapment within the ibre within impacts to R-value. “When installed within the Foreverbreathe™ Wall Systems this dynamic performance is empowered by the speci ication not involving what are described as ‘ ’vapour resistant’’ product combinations such as plaster board and acrylic paints. For New Zealand sheep farmers and those experiencing the long-term health bene its while not having to worry about rising energy costs. It’s a win-win.” For the team at Health Based Building being able to source and supply true quality products, in every sense of the word and to o er advice based on years of research and experience is a great situation to have reached. “It’s about empowering consumers to look beyond the common o ering and to support their right to access the very best building information to base their decisions on. The HBB message has been centralised around speci ication; there’s a central place to go and Robin says this is its core strength. To understand the Foreverbreathe™ Speci ication in action is to visit the company’s Foreverbreathe Demonstration home at 1062 Colombo Street, Christchurch or access information by visiting www.healthbasedbuilding.com The Foreverbreathe™ Demonstration Home is open Monday to Friday from 9am to 4pm. Health Based Building ™ — with New Zealand Wool