Kate

You may not have to deal with your local permit office. Contractors generally handle that aspect of construction, and they are familiar with local personnel and practices. If you are working with a contractor, I recommend that you let that person handle the application for the building permit, if possible. – In my case the

Here are some things to keep in mind as you decide whether and how you can afford to build a new home: Everything will cost more than you expect or think is reasonable. You will probably need to sign a time and materials contract, rather than a contract for a fixed price, if the construction

The project manager created this sign on his own initiative, which was impressive. But it fell to the site supervisor to enforce the policy, and he himself was not entirely fragrance-free. It is a difficult concept to convey to people who don’t ordinarily notice fragrance. Nonetheless, he understood that it was part of the contract,

When I chose an architect I found one whose work I liked immediately, and I hired him without looking further. In looking for a suitable contractor I had the opposite experience. I contacted every contractor who seemed like a good match, got a response from very few of them, interviewed all who responded, hired one

It is not necessary to work with an architect, but in my case it made sense. Before deciding to build a house, I investigated prefab homes. I found a company that built zero-VOC homes and was willing to work with a chemically sensitive person, but at about the same time I purchased land that company

When designing your home, I think it is important to look at how you want to use the space, rather than automatically accepting current popular house designs. When we discussed the floor plan and features of the house I imagined, some of my requests surprised the architect. He was focused on making something beautiful, but

For clothes, bed linens, and other soft items I used vacuum sealed bags, placed in plastic storage containers. But for books, kitchen utensils, and similar items I used cardboard boxes. I was surprised by the differences in various packing boxes and tapes, in terms of both quality and odor. Some boxes and tapes had such

In online forums people sometimes ask “What’s the best place for a chemically sensitive person to live?” There is no one-size-fits-all answer to that question. Chemically sensitive people are all different; what we react to depends upon what we have been exposed to. In addition, chemically sensitive people almost always have other medical issues —