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There are a good variety of ecofriendly plasters, paints
and woodcare to suit old properties and new. The main names appear to be Beeck,
Aglaia, Auro and St Astier (lime specialists).
The natural
plasters have a lot going for them. They are suitable for a whole range of
applications, from paint-on hemp-fibred gloop to insulating structural plaster,
and tend to be vapour permeable, humidity regulating, pollutant absorbing,
sound damping, flexible wonders. They can be a bit expensive, though: £2 to £20
per square meter, although £2 to £4 is the norm. Most natural plasters contain
some lime, which is inherently mould resistant, and many contain natural clays.
Consider hempcrete for bottom coat plaster (this is
basically lime mortar mixed with chopped hemp), as this is an all round winner.
You may be able to paint straight over it as well, depending on location and
how smooth you want your walls.
Remember that natural plasters still contain materials
that have to be dug out of the earth, crushed, baked and so on. They just
contain less of these than gypsum and Portland cement varieties. Gypsum is not
inherently too bad as it only needs to be heated to around 200oC
during production, but it does not have quite the qualities of the natural plaster.
Note that some gypsum comes from Flue Gas Desulphurisation, whereby sulphur is
removed from power station smoke. This is a very green alternative and is
probably the best option all round, as long as you are happy with gypsum’s
poorer flexibility and moisture properties
Natural paints can be very pretty and are based
on plant extracts and mineral additives (ground up rocks). The plant based
paints contain many natural oils and are free from industrial solvents, but do
give off some natural volatile vapours. Very zesty. They are all breathable and
some bind chemically to the wall, rather than just coating it.
Most ‘normal’ paints contain industrial solvents (VOC’s),
formaldehyde and ammonia; even emulsions. They also tend to be produced in
chemical factories. Even Farrow & Ball emulsion paints contain some VOCs,
and they are about as fancy and expensive as you can get without going natural.
Auro and Aglaia seem to be the most common brands and both
seem pretty good. Auro source their ingredients locally whenever they can and
they compost all their wastes. Prices seem to vary from around £6 per litre for
emulsion to £15 per litre for standard gloss, although prices do go much
higher. For comparison, bargain basement emulsion will cost under £2 per litre,
but there is a lot of ‘you get what you pay for’ involved here. That said,
lime-wash only costs about £1 per litre, so if price is your driver then look
no further.
It is always worth checking the contents of natural
paints, as some claim more than they actually deliver.
Natural varnishes
and wood preservatives are not dissimilar to the natural paints. The preservatives use borax
or naturally occurring tars (such as lake asphalts) as their poisonous
component to kill the fungus, rot, lichens etc that would otherwise cause the wood
to deteriorate. Preservatives cost from
around the £5 per litre mark and varnish from £15 per litre.
What to do
Natural paints and varnishes are an improvement on their
petrochemical cousins, both from a performance and ethical point of view. They
also cost around the same for similar quality products. I say use them.
Natural plasters are a little to a lot more expensive than
their gypsum brethren, and gypsum is not that bad. The advantages of the
natural plasters may make them clear winners is certain circumstances, but if
gypsum is up to the job, there is very little reason not to use it; try to use
the Flue Gas Desulphurisation variety if you can find it.
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