Columbus Dispatch, Jill Laster
Published July 7, 2008
The first house in central Ohio to be framed in BluWood -- a product designed to resist mold and termites -- is being built in Oldstone Crossing. BluWood costs about an extra $1.50 per square foot of heated space.
A new blue wood is grabbing the attention of passers-by in the Oldstone Crossing subdivision on the Northwest Side.
The first house in central Ohio using BluWood, a turquoise-colored wood treated to resist mold and termites, was finished late last month.
"Folks out there framing the houses see several cars stop and just look at it every day," said Charles Ruma Jr., vice president of Virginia Homes, which is developing Oldstone Crossing. "It definitely turns heads."
"Other wood producers already apply a fungicide and insecticide to the lowest level of wood in the house, the sill plate," said Charles Morando, president of WoodSmart Solutions, which created BluWood. "But BluWood is intended to offer that same protection to the entire house as well as a water-repellent coating to prevent mold and make the insecticide last longer."
BluWood uses a chemical compound commonly used in wood treatments, disodium octaborate tetrahydrate, as a pesticide. For the waterproof coating, WoodSmart uses a "compound that doesn't give off gas or other pollutants." Both the pesticide and the waterproof coating are registered with the Environmental Protection Agency as nontoxic.
"I was looking for (an alternative to wood treated with arsenic) and found a whole other market for home framing sets," Morando said. "There was nothing like BluWood. The market was starving for it."
More than 500 million board feet of BluWood have been sold since 2003, when BluWood was distributed only in South Carolina and Texas. Now, BluWood is available in 48 states, including Ohio, where it became available this year.
BluWood adds about $1.50 per square foot of heated space, which would mean an extra $3,000 for 2,000 square feet. The use of BluWood on the 3,800-square-foot house in Oldstone Crossing added about $6,000 to the price of the house.
No other BluWood-framed homes are being built in central Ohio by Virginia Homes, Ruma said. The house in Oldstone Crossing is being built to generate interest in the option, he said, and to show options for the Oldstone Crossing development, where about a third of the homes -- ranging from $400,000 to $650,000 -- are built.
Virginia Homes is the only developer that lists BluWood as an option in central Ohio, and no Columbus-area retailers stock it, said Dick Phillips, sales manager for BluWood manufacturer National Industrial Lumber.
Buyers interested in using BluWood for framing a house or smaller renovation projects can order it through lumber yards or home-improvement stores such as Lowe's and Home Depot.
While convincing buyers or developers to add to construction costs in a sluggish housing market is difficult, products that can prevent mold are attracting interest, if not yet sales, Phillips said.
"They're looking at BluWood as something they can pass on to the owner, especially owners who have had mold issues," he said.
After Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne caused a major mold infestation in 73-year-old Betty Baker Farley's Florida home in 2004, she had a "tooth-and-nail struggle" with the insurance company to be compensated for the destroyed home, said daughter-in-law Nonni Chrystal.
Eleven months later, Chrystal's parents and sister lost their houses in Hurricane Katrina.
"It was a one-two punch with (Hurricanes) Frances and Jeanne in 2004, and 11 months later there was Katrina," she said. "Three homes totally annihilated. With black mold completely carpeting all three homes and facing total annihilation, mold protection was something really important to us."
When Chrystal and her husband built their next home in Indialantic, Fla., they decided to build it with an eye on all kinds of disasters, including mold. The couple's house, designed to be environmentally friendly, uses a new type of experimental BluWood that is fireproof in addition to being mold- and insect-proof. Fireproof wood is expected to go to limited locations not yet determined in the fall, Morando said.
Environmental groups helped remove another pesticide-treated lumber -- chromated copper arsenic -- from the market in 2003 because of health concerns.
Unlike arsenic-treated wood, lumber on the market now is much safer for consumers, said Richard Wiles, executive director of the Environmental Working Group. Although some types have pesticides, he said, for the most part, they don't do harm to humans.
Mike Pramik covers development for The Dispatch. He is currently on assignment. Contact him at
mpramik@dispatch.com or by fax at 614-461-5107.
jlaster@dispatch.com
