My house has a tendency to be the first guinea pig for many of the products I use in the field. My wife loves the way this makes our house always look like a construction zone. She loves the continual movement of furniture from one room to another, she loves the mess.... She may yet kill me.

My house has a tendency to be the first guinea pig for many of the products I use in the field. My wife loves the way this makes our house always look like a construction zone. She loves the continual movement of furniture from one room to another, she loves the mess.... She may yet kill me.

Im always skeptical of new products . Aluminum windows were the great new window technology 35 years ago, then all our window sills rotted out with condensation. Hardboard siding promised an inexpensive way to clad homes till the class-action lawsuits started and it didnt seems like such a good deal anymore. Synthetic stucco seemed like a great idea. Why hand trowel three layers when you can use a gun to shoot on one layer? Unfortunately, the guys (yes I mean guys) who went the lazy one coat route were also too lazy to provide ways for moisture to escape those buildings and now mold lawsuits have made getting insurance for synthetic stucco work nearly impossible.

So my current home research involves paint . There are eight paints visible from where I write this (my wife is thrilled). Every major paint manufacturer has their own line of low or no VOC ecologically friendly paint (for a quick primer on VOCs go to http://www.epa.gov/iaq/voc.html). Benjamin-Moore has their Eco Spec (the only paint currently certified by GreenGuard), Sherwin-WIlliams their HealthSpec , Kelly-Moore their E-coat (which has recycled content), and then there are all the smaller specialty paint manufacturers like AFM and Bioshield . All of these paints are touted as not compromising our indoor air quality. And indoor air quality is a big deal, but my main question has been, How well do they cover.

What does it look like. How well does it work. It may be breathable, drinkable, compostable, and great for giving plants that quick growth start, but were talking paint here. If it isnt easy to use and doesnt look great when Im done then my customers are going to feel shortchanged. So I practice at home, and heres what I know to date.

1) Ordering paint on-line sucks. Shipping is expensive and what color you end up with is total potluck

2) Big box stores have horrible paint. Is it still a good deal when it takes three coats?

3) Zero VOC paint sold by a real paint store covers well, cleans up easily, and doesnt drive you out of the house with fumes. My current favorite is BennyMoores Eco Spec, I like the third party verification process theyve gone through.

4) But , (and thats a big but) Wall and trim are two different worlds

4.5) I still havent found a no VOC trim paint I could use at a customers house.

The problem with eco-friendly paint is that it is all water based. Now water based is great for clean up, but it has one inherent flaw: it dries too quickly (evaporation you know). Drying quickly is great for walls. You use rollers on walls, so brush marks arent a problem. But trim has to be painted with a brush. The only way to get baby-butt smooth trim is to use an oil base paint that dries slowly enough for the brush marks to float out. All of the water based enamels Ive tried to date have left brush marks. I still have more on order and may yet find a miracle, but to date Ive found nothing that rocks my socks.

Now Sherwin-Williams , bless their soul, went well and above the mark and gave   me a gallon of oil based trim paint that goes on like butter and has a VOC content lower than many water based products. They get away with such a low VOC content by using an extremely high solids content. Its their Pro-Classic XP . It takes days to dry fully, but when it does it is smooth smooth smooth . Because its an oil base it does have some odor while using , but its negligible. I thought I had fallen in love and found my one true trim paint but then I went to wash my brush. Since it was an oil based paint I had to wash my brush with mineral spirits AND I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE. So much for low VOCs. The paint is fine but how do I clean up without fumigating myself ? MaybeIll just ask my painter to use it and make him huff the mineral spirits fumes.

So there, always other questions raised by the answers we find. But dont listen to me. Pick up some magazine with an article on Green paints and theyll tell you how easy and wonderful it all is. Us curmudgeons are harder to please.

Josh Bogle