The Awakening Spaces Podcast - Conscious Construction for a Healthy Home

Ashley Spanovich
  • 5.0 (35)
  • Home & Garden

Awakening Spaces explores the profound connection between our physical environments and our inner consciousness. We guide homeowners, designers, and wellness seekers beyond simply discussing "toxin-free" building methods to examine who we actually become on our "toxin-free" journey. In this podcast we’re not only talking about windows, walls, and wiring. Through expert interviews, case studies, and actionable guidance, we will explore how mindful design choices affect our relationships, stress levels, and overall well-being. Drawing from my background in design, building biology, and building science I guide listeners through both the practical and philosophical aspects of creating homes that elevate our health and consciousness. Each week, you’ll receive grounded guidance and actionable tips to help you eliminate the stress and overwhelm of finding, renovating, building, or maintaining your healthy home—so that you can create a space that truly supports who you are becoming. Just by tuning in, you’re already stepping into what it means to be an Awakened Homeowner. Together, we’re building a new way forward—one conscious choice at a time.

  1. 5d ago

    Tips for buying a Healthier Home and avoiding red flags with Real Estate Agent Rachel Klein | EP49

    Most people buying a home are thinking about square footage, school districts, and whether the kitchen has been updated. Almost nobody is thinking about what is behind the walls, under the floors, or in the crawl space until they are sick and the remediation quote arrives. In this episode, Ashley sits down with Rachel Klein, licensed real estate agent and healthy home advisor based in Boulder, Colorado, for a conversation that every homeowner and prospective buyer in America needs to hear. Rachel bought a home, got sick from it, spent months figuring out why, and came out the other side with a completely different approach to how she represents her clients. Rachel walks through what a healthy home-focused real estate process actually looks like from the very first conversation, why she does an environmental walkthrough before her clients ever set foot in a property, what red flags she is flagging in the Colorado market that most agents would never mention, and why the seller's property disclosure is one of the most underused tools available to both buyers and sellers. They also cover dirt crawl spaces, spray foam, whole home humidifiers, swamp coolers, attic fans, flat roofs, and what freeze-thaw cycles in Colorado are doing to older homes that nobody is talking about. This episode is for anyone buying, selling, or even just thinking about their next home. It is also for anyone who has ever felt like they were the only one asking these questions in a room full of people who had no idea what they were talking about. THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: Dr. Terry Fox episode of The Awakening Spaces PodcastBrownell Landrum wishing and manifestation episode of The Awakening Spaces PodcastStacy Levy, somatic guide: https://www.stacylevyyoga.com/coachingErica Bonfanti flat roof episode of The Awakening Spaces PodcastAshley's Awakened Homeowner guide: https://awakeningspaces.com/awakened-homeownerAwakening Spaces offerings and Conscious Construction ContainerColorado seller's property disclosure requirementsMoisture detectors and whole home leak detection systemsCONNECT WITH ASHLEY Instagram | Tiktok | Youtube | Website Ashley helps you renovate and build healthier homes to prevent future health issues from arising from your environment. Whether you’re searching for a new home, assessing concerns with your current one, or embarking on a renovation or new build, Awakening Spaces can guide you every step of the way. Ashley brings her background in Building Biology and Building Science and years of hands-on experience helping families build and renovate homes to prevent mold, chemical exposure, and EMFs in their living spaces. If you’re looking to build or renovate a new home, Ashley has courses to empower and one on one offerings to guide you through the whole process so you can avoid costly mistakes and enjoy the process again! Curious about how we can help with your project? Explore our offerings here. CONNECT WITH GUEST Instagram | Website Rachel Klein is a licensed real estate agent in Colorado and healthy home advisor with the Goodacre Group at milehimodern in Boulder. After purchasing a home that made her seriously ill with mold-related symptoms, Rachel combined her personal recovery journey with her real estate practice to create a process that helps buyers find healthier homes and sellers present their properties with greater transparency. She is building a national network of like-minded agents and educating colleagues on how to advocate for clients with health sensitivities in the real estate process. SHOW YOUR SUPPORT If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and leave us a rating/review! Thank you for listening ✨

    Tips for buying a Healthier Home and avoiding red flags with Real Estate Agent Rachel Klein | EP49

  2. Aug 13

    Flat Roofs, Envelope Failures, and Why Your Building Inspector Is Not Enough with Erika Bonfanti of Actin Partners | EP48

    Most homeowners never think about their building envelope until something goes wrong. And by then, the mold is already there, the sheathing is already rotting, and the remediation quote is already six figures. In this episode, Ashley sits down with Erika Bonfanti, structural engineer turned building enclosure specialist and forensic consultant, for one of the most practical and eye-opening conversations this podcast has had on what actually keeps water out of your home and what happens when it does not. Erika breaks down what an envelope consultant actually does, why they are not the same as an architect, and why bringing one in on the front end of a project is one of the most cost-effective decisions a homeowner can make. They go deep on flat roofs specifically, covering why membranes fail, what happens when you put a deck or pavers on top of one, why the seals around every penetration need to be replaced every two to three years, and what the building code actually requires for above-deck insulation in cold climates that almost nobody is following. They also walk through a real project in Santa Fe where all of these issues converged at once and what the solution actually looked like. This episode is for anyone buying, building, or renovating a home with a flat roof, anyone who has ever had a leak they could not locate, and anyone who wants to understand what good looks like before something goes wrong. THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: ASHRAE technical committee on health and buildingsIRC and IBC requirements for above-deck insulation ratios by climate zoneTPO, PVC, EPDM, and modified bitumen membrane typesInfrared scanning for flat roof moisture detectionDense-pack cellulose and denim insulation in flat roof assembliesIECC energy code insulation requirementsCONNECT WITH ASHLEY Instagram | Tiktok | Youtube | Website Ashley helps you renovate and build healthier homes to prevent future health issues from arising from your environment. Whether you’re searching for a new home, assessing concerns with your current one, or embarking on a renovation or new build, Awakening Spaces can guide you every step of the way. Ashley brings her background in Building Biology and Building Science and years of hands-on experience helping families build and renovate homes to prevent mold, chemical exposure, and EMFs in their living spaces. If you’re looking to build or renovate a new home, Ashley has courses to empower and one on one offerings to guide you through the whole process so you can avoid costly mistakes and enjoy the process again! Curious about how we can help with your project? Explore our offerings here. CONNECT WITH GUEST Instagram | Erika’s IG | Website Erika Bonfanti is a principal at Acton Partners and a building enclosure specialist and forensic engineer with over fifteen years of experience in condition assessments, leakage investigations, material distress evaluation, and enclosure design on new, existing, and historic structures. She applies her deep knowledge of how and why buildings fail to consulting and design peer review work with the goal of improving the hygrothermal and functional performance of enclosure systems. Erika currently serves as chair of ASHRAE TC 1.12, Moisture Management in Buildings, and is a dedicated board member of Preservation Austin. SHOW YOUR SUPPORT If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and leave us a rating/review! Thank you for listening ✨

    Flat Roofs, Envelope Failures, and Why Your Building Inspector Is Not Enough with Erika Bonfanti of Actin Partners | EP48

  3. Aug 6

    Zara Interviews Ashley: Owner's Reps, Oversight, and What It Actually Takes to Build a Healthy Home | EP47

    What happens when the host becomes the guest? In this special episode of the Awakening Spaces Podcast, Ashley's dear friend and building biology colleague Zara D'Cotta flips the microphone and interviews Ashley herself, pulling back the curtain on the work Ashley does behind the scenes on every project she touches. From the lawsuit that changed everything in her early career to what owner's rep work actually looks like day to day. Ashley walks through how a project gone wrong became the foundation of everything she does now, why oversight is the single biggest indicator of project success, and what it actually means to advocate for a homeowner in a room full of specialists who all have different opinions. She also gets candid about her own health journey, what finally shifted after years of outsourcing her healing, and why neurofeedback, morning walks, and learning to stop scanning her environment for threats changed things more than any supplement protocol ever did. This one is for every homeowner who has ever felt overwhelmed by decisions, every builder or designer who wants to understand what a healthy project team actually looks like, and every practitioner in this space who has ever wondered how Ashley holds it all together. Spoiler: she is still figuring it out too, and that is exactly what makes this conversation so good. THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: Conscious Construction Container: https://courses.awakeningspaces.com/cccZara D'Cotta, The Healthy Home: thehealthyhome.com.auBuilding Biology Institute: buildingbiologyinstitute.orgGreen Building Advisor: greenbuildingadvisor.comBuilding Science Corporation: buildingscience.comCONNECT WITH ASHLEY Instagram | Tiktok | Youtube | Website Ashley helps you renovate and build healthier homes to prevent future health issues from arising from your environment. Whether you’re searching for a new home, assessing concerns with your current one, or embarking on a renovation or new build, Awakening Spaces can guide you every step of the way. Ashley brings her background in Building Biology and Building Science and years of hands-on experience helping families build and renovate homes to prevent mold, chemical exposure, and EMFs in their living spaces. If you’re looking to build or renovate a new home, Ashley has courses to empower and one on one offerings to guide you through the whole process so you can avoid costly mistakes and enjoy the process again! Curious about how we can help with your project? Explore our offerings here. CONNECT WITH GUEST Instagram | Youtube | Website Zara D'Cotta is a Building Biology New Build Consultant, Electromagnetic Radiation Specialist, and founder of The Healthy Home in Australia. After navigating two cancer diagnoses and years of environmental illness across multiple water-damaged homes, Zara made it her mission to bridge cutting-edge research and real-world building practice. She holds both the BBNC and EMRS certifications, placing her in a small group of building biologists globally qualified to integrate EMF awareness with moisture control, material health, and healthy design principles into mainstream construction. Today she works with builders, designers, and industry organizations across Australia and beyond through her Healthy Building Materials Mastermind, her Low EMF Home Design and Construction course, and her consulting and speaking work with some of the most forward-thinking organizations in the built environment. SHOW YOUR SUPPORT If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and leave us a rating/review! Thank you for listening ✨

    Zara Interviews Ashley: Owner's Reps, Oversight, and What It Actually Takes to Build a Healthy Home | EP47

  4. Jul 30

    Mold Codes, Material Health, EMF Awareness, and Why Australia Is Leading the Way with Zara D'Cotta of The Healthy Home | EP46

    What does it take to go from two cancer diagnoses and years of undiagnosed mold illness to becoming one of the most quietly influential voices in the healthy building industry? In this episode, Ashley sits down with her dear friend and longtime colleague Zara D'Cotta, building biology educator, electromagnetic radiation specialist, and founder of The Healthy Home in Australia, for one of the most personal and wide-ranging conversations this podcast has had. Zara's path into healthy building ran through a breast cancer diagnosis at twenty-nine, a melanoma two years later, and a slow, devastating journey through multiple water-damaged buildings in Sydney before she finally understood what was happening in her body and decided to do something about it at industry scale. Together Ashley and Zara explore what is happening in Australia right now that the US building industry should be paying close attention to, including landmark 2023 National Construction Code changes that officially recognized mold as a hazard to human health and opened the door to lawsuits against builders and designers for mold in walls and roofs. They also talk about what it actually looks like to educate builders on EMF, why so many of the builders Zara works with are now taking electromagnetic radiation seriously enough to carry meters on site, and why the supply chain is finally starting to ask better questions about material health. And because this is the Awakening Spaces podcast, they go there on astrology, human design, and what it means to build a life and a business that is aligned with who you actually are. This one is equal parts building science, lived experience, and soul. If you have ever wondered what the healthy building conversation looks like from the other side of the world, or what it looks like to rebuild yourself from the inside out while also trying to change an industry, this episode is for you. THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: Building Biology Institute BBNC certification program: buildingbiologyinstitute.orgSafe and Sound Pro RF meter (used by builders in Zara's programs)Use code: AS5 for 5% OFFMitch Marchand, EMF specialist (referenced for collaborative site testing)ClimaSure hygrothermal analysis (Jess, Building Biology Podcast Australia)Enduro Builders, South AustraliaWood fiber insulation and ProClima weather resistive barrierCONNECT WITH ASHLEY Instagram | Tiktok | Youtube | Website Ashley helps you renovate and build healthier homes to prevent future health issues from arising from your environment. Whether you’re searching for a new home, assessing concerns with your current one, or embarking on a renovation or new build, Awakening Spaces can guide you every step of the way. Ashley brings her background in Building Biology and Building Science and years of hands-on experience helping families build and renovate homes to prevent mold, chemical exposure, and EMFs in their living spaces. If you’re looking to build or renovate a new home, Ashley has courses to empower and one on one offerings to guide you through the whole process so you can avoid costly mistakes and enjoy the process again! Curious about how we can help with your project? Explore our offerings here. CONNECT WITH GUEST Instagram | Youtube | Website Zara D'Cotta is a Building Biology New Build Consultant, Electromagnetic Radiation Specialist, and founder of The Healthy Home in Australia. After navigating two cancer diagnoses and years of environmental illness across multiple water-damaged homes, Zara made it her mission to bridge cutting-edge research and real-world building practice. She holds both the BBNC and EMRS certifications, placing her in a small group of building biologists globally qualified to integrate EMF awareness with moisture control, material health, and healthy design principles into mainstream construction. Today she works with builders, designers, and industry organizations across Australia and beyond through her Healthy Building Materials Mastermind, her Low EMF Home Design and Construction course, and her consulting and speaking work with some of the most forward-thinking organizations in the built environment. SHOW YOUR SUPPORT If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and leave us a rating/review! Thank you for listening ✨

    Mold Codes, Material Health, EMF Awareness, and Why Australia Is Leading the Way with Zara D'Cotta of The Healthy Home | EP46

  5. Jul 23

    What Residential HVAC gets wrong and Why Planning Ahead Changes Everything with Dylan Hutcheson of Holistically Built | EP45

    What happens when a commercial construction veteran with a five-hundred-million-dollar mixed-use project on his resume gets taken down by mold? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Dylan Hutcheson, healthy home builder and founder of Holistically Built in Atlanta, Georgia, whose path from high-rise construction management to residential healthy home construction runs straight through two years of mystery illness, medical leave, a disability insurance lawsuit, and a slow, humbling rebuild of his health and his career. Dylan brings something rare to the healthy home conversation: deep mechanical systems knowledge earned not just from building but from years of tearing sick buildings apart and figuring out why they failed. Together Ashley and Dylan walk through the mechanical systems conversation this space has been waiting for, from why oversizing an HVAC unit is one of the most common and expensive mistakes in hot humid climates, to what ductboard actually is and why one of Atlanta's top ENT doctors will not see patients who still have it in their homes. They dig into manual J, S, D, and T calculations, why a dehumidifier is sometimes a necessary evil and sometimes misunderstood, how ERVs interact with the rest of your system, and why the IQ Air Perfect 16 filter may be one of the most underrated upgrades available for an existing home. They also talk about planning ahead, collision plans for mechanical and structural coordination, roof geometry, window placement, and all the decisions that cost you almost nothing to think about in design and a fortune to fix in the field. This is a part one, and they are already planning part two around what it actually looks like to build Dylan's own home from scratch. If you are building new, renovating, or just trying to understand why your HVAC system is not doing what you think it is, start here. THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: IQ Air Perfect 16 central HVAC filter: iqair.comIQ Air standalone air purifiers (note: measure for magnetic fields and keep away from sleeping areas)EC3 products by Micro Balance Health Products, Dr. Donald Dennis, Atlanta ENTShielded Healing whole home EMF assessment: https://shieldedhealing.com/pageBioflex Laser Clinic, Toronto (photobiomodulation therapy)Therasage infrared saunaSanta Fe and AprilAire dehumidifiersNikki Krueger episode of The Awakening Spaces PodcastAlex Kessler, Healthy Home Guide YouTube channel (air purifier testing episode)CONNECT WITH ASHLEY Instagram | Tiktok | Youtube | Website Ashley helps you renovate and build healthier homes to prevent future health issues from arising from your environment. Whether you’re searching for a new home, assessing concerns with your current one, or embarking on a renovation or new build, Awakening Spaces can guide you every step of the way. Ashley brings her background in Building Biology and Building Science and years of hands-on experience helping families build and renovate homes to prevent mold, chemical exposure, and EMFs in their living spaces. If you’re looking to build or renovate a new home, Ashley has courses to empower and one on one offerings to guide you through the whole process so you can avoid costly mistakes and enjoy the process again! Curious about how we can help with your project? Explore our offerings here. CONNECT WITH GUEST Instagram | Website Dylan Hutcheson is a licensed general contractor and founder of Holistically Built, LLC in Atlanta, Georgia. After a career in large-scale commercial construction with Brasfield and Gorrie, Dylan was sidelined by a serious environmental illness that took years to recover from. That experience led him to environmental consulting, where he spent years conducting indoor air quality investigations and helping homeowners navigate remediation before concluding that the best solution was simply building healthier homes from the start. Today Dylan combines his construction background, environmental consulting experience, and certification as a Building Biology New Build Consultant through the Building Biology Institute to build homes designed to support the health of the people living inside them. SHOW YOUR SUPPORT If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and leave us a rating/review! Thank you for listening ✨

    What Residential HVAC gets wrong and Why Planning Ahead Changes Everything with Dylan Hutcheson of Holistically Built | EP45

  6. Jul 16

    The Science behind Vapor Barriers, Wallpaper, Paint, and Spray Foam with Emily Mottram | EP44

    What does it actually mean to build a pretty good house, and why is that sometimes a better goal than building a perfect one? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Emily Mottram, licensed architect, building science educator, co-author of the Pretty Good House book, and one of the most thoughtful voices in the residential design space. Emily grew up on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania, got into architecture because her drafting teacher told her it was hard, and has spent the last two decades chasing every building science certification she could find, not because she thinks she knows everything, but precisely because she knows she does not. Together they cover an enormous amount of ground: what makes a house healthy when the answer is different for every person and every climate, why spray foam keeps showing up as a band-aid for design problems, what paint is actually doing to your walls and to the ocean, and why the building code is a recipe book that people keep making worse by swapping the wrong ingredients. Emily also shares the story of two back-to-back clients, one with multiple chemical sensitivities and one with a serious mold history, whose needs were almost perfectly opposite, and what that taught her about materials, assumptions, and listening. This is also a conversation about slowness, about pausing before adding more, doing better things instead of doing things better, and why the most important question to ask before reaching for any building product is whether you actually need it at all. If you are designing, building, or renovating and want to think more clearly about what you are putting into your home and why, this episode is required listening. THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: BS and Beer Spray Foam Episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGjnZmiviykBS and Beer Spray foam Part 2 Episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP0b2Ibe7WUPretty Good House BookGet in touch or work with Emily: https://www.mottramandmaines.com/CONNECT WITH ASHLEY Instagram | Tiktok | Youtube | Websit Ashley helps you renovate and build healthier homes to prevent future health issues from arising from your environment. Whether you’re searching for a new home, assessing concerns with your current one, or embarking on a renovation or new build, Awakening Spaces can guide you every step of the way. Ashley brings her background in Building Biology and Building Science and years of hands-on experience helping families build and renovate homes to prevent mold, chemical exposure, and EMFs in their living spaces. If you’re looking to build or renovate a new home, Ashley has courses to empower and one on one offerings to guide you through the whole process so you can avoid costly mistakes and enjoy the process again! Curious about how we can help with your project? Explore our offerings here. CONNECT WITH GUEST Instagram | Website Emily Mottram is an architect and principal of Mottram & Maines. She developed an interest in building science and sustainable design in college, where she was inspired to design healthy, durable and energy efficient homes that are also comfortable and beautiful. She is a building science educator, co-Author of “Pretty Good House” a host on “The BS & Beer Show” and the creator of a monthly podcast “E3 - Energy and Efficiency with Emily,” focusing on building science, architecture and female entrepreneurship. SHOW YOUR SUPPORT If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and leave us a rating/review! Thank you for listening ✨

    The Science behind Vapor Barriers, Wallpaper, Paint, and Spray Foam with Emily Mottram | EP44

  7. Jul 9

    Living with CIRs, Healthy Construction, and Healing with Brent Little of Pinehaven Healthy Homes | EP43

    What happens when the person who builds healthy homes for a living becomes the one who desperately needs one? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Brent Little, a thirty-year construction veteran and founder of Pinehaven Healthy Homes in McCall, Idaho, for one of the most honest and human conversations this podcast has ever had. Brent was a high-capacity, driven builder who had been exposed to mold on job sites for decades without incident, until a brand new RV became the straw that broke the camel's back, and both he and his wife found themselves navigating one of the most isolating and misunderstood illnesses of our time. Brent walks through the full arc of what happened, from the early neurological symptoms he thought might be brain cancer, to the emotional dysregulation that had them considering psychiatric intervention for his wife, to the long and expensive road through functional medicine that led nowhere until he found Dr. Eric Dorninger and Lauren Lowenstein of the Biotoxin Lady community. He also talks candidly about what it is like to be a man going through chronic illness in an industry built on toughness, how CIRS has shifted his entire business model toward natural and low-toxicity materials, and why he now sees this experience as something that was given to him rather than something that happened to him. This episode is for anyone who has ever felt like they were doing everything right and still got knocked flat. It is also for every builder, tradesperson, and contractor who has never connected the dots between the materials they work with every day and the way their body feels. Brent's story is a reminder that the healthy home conversation belongs to everyone, not just the people building from scratch. THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: CIRS cluster symptoms and VCS testHLA haplotype testingLauren Lowenstein, The Biotoxin Lady and her private CIRS community: thebiotoxinlady.comCholestyramine and Welchol binder protocolSilicosis and respiratory health risks in the trades CONNECT WITH ASHLEY Instagram | Tiktok | Youtube | Website Ashley helps you renovate and build healthier homes to prevent future health issues from arising from your environment. Whether you’re searching for a new home, assessing concerns with your current one, or embarking on a renovation or new build, Awakening Spaces can guide you every step of the way. Ashley brings her background in Building Biology and Building Science and years of hands-on experience helping families build and renovate homes to prevent mold, chemical exposure, and EMFs in their living spaces. If you’re looking to build or renovate a new home, Ashley has courses to empower and one on one offerings to guide you through the whole process so you can avoid costly mistakes and enjoy the process again! Curious about how we can help with your project? Explore our offerings here. CONNECT WITH GUEST Instagram | Website Brent Little is a custom home builder based in McCall, Idaho and the founder of Pine Haven Healthy Homes. He has been in the trades since he was 18, studied Construction Management at Ohio State University, and has spent his career building in one of the most demanding environments in the country, a mountain ski town with high snow loads and complex site conditions that require serious technical skill to navigate. Two years ago, everything changed. Brent was hit with environmental illness that put him out of commission for over a year. The experience cracked open a whole new understanding of how the homes we build directly affect the health of the people living inside them, and it redirected his passion and his practice toward healthy building. Today Brent brings that hard-won personal experience together with decades of technical expertise to build homes that are as healthy as they are beautiful. Outside of work, he loves the outdoors, was a sponsored backcountry snowmobiler, and is in the process of adopting his eight-year-old son alongside his wife. SHOW YOUR SUPPORT If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and leave us a rating/review! Thank you for listening ✨

    Living with CIRs, Healthy Construction, and Healing with Brent Little of Pinehaven Healthy Homes | EP43

  8. Jul 2

    Passive House, Healthy Materials, and the Hierarchy of Healthy Building with Trey Farmer of Forge Craft Architecture | EP42

    What does it actually mean to build a healthy home, and where do you start when everything feels equally important? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Trey Farmer, Austin-based architect, passive house advocate, and co-organizer of the Humid Climate Conference, for one of the most grounded and practically useful conversations this podcast has had on the intersection of building performance and human health. Trey brings a rare combination of credentials: passive house certification work, affordable housing and emerging tech projects, natural building experience, and a seat on the advisory board of Malachi's Message, a Texas-based mold awareness nonprofit. He is also just deeply fun to talk to. Together they unpack what passive house certification actually is, why it functions as such a reliable litmus test for the whole project team, and what it means in practice to build a home that controls its air, vapor, and thermal layers before worrying about anything else. Trey shares his hierarchy of healthy building priorities, from water control and airtightness all the way through materials and filtration, and why that sequence matters so much for homeowners trying to figure out where to put their limited time and budget. They also get into the gas versus induction debate, EMF considerations in context, the growing availability of red list free and declare-labeled materials, and why building smaller and better is often the most powerful financial decision a homeowner can make. This one ends with both Ashley and Trey agreeing that the healthy home space is only as strong as its community, and if you have been looking for your people, this episode will feel like coming home. THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: Contact Trey directly: trey@forgexcraft.com2026 Humid Climate Conference (biennial, Austin, Texas)PHIUS: Passive House Institute US certificationHERS Index: Home Energy Rating SystemBuilding Science Corporation (host of Summer Camp)Healthy Materials Lab at Parsons New SchoolILFI Living Building Challenge and Safer Materials Shift ProgramDeclare Label and Red List Free certificationMalachi's Message nonprofit (mold awareness and support, Texas)Fastwall ICF (borate-impregnated wood chip ICF product)Lutron Caseta smart switches with Pico RF remotesEva King, forensic home inspector (referenced)Stuart Brand, author of Whole Earth Catalog (new book on maintenance referenced)CONNECT WITH ASHLEY Instagram | Tiktok | Youtube | Website Ashley helps you renovate and build healthier homes to prevent future health issues from arising from your environment. Whether you’re searching for a new home, assessing concerns with your current one, or embarking on a renovation or new build, Awakening Spaces can guide you every step of the way. Ashley brings her background in Building Biology and Building Science and years of hands-on experience helping families build and renovate homes to prevent mold, chemical exposure, and EMFs in their living spaces. If you’re looking to build or renovate a new home, Ashley has courses to empower and one on one offerings to guide you through the whole process so you can avoid costly mistakes and enjoy the process again! Curious about how we can help with your project? Explore our offerings here. CONNECT WITH GUEST Instagram | Instagram 2 | Website Meet Trey Farmer, Partner and Principal at Forge Craft Architecture + Design. With nearly two decades of experience in sustainable design and construction, and as the firm’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Trey is passionate about projects that make life better for people and our planet. He is LEED AP Certified as well as a Certified Passive House Consultant (CPHC). In addition to his architectural expertise, he is a certified permaculture designer and teacher. Trey joined the Forge Craft team in 2016, drawn to the firm’s dedication to sustainable design, building science, and the shared conviction that great design can solve big problems and improve lives in a tangible way. Trey currently serves on the Austin Passive House Alliance Board, the National Passive House Alliance Council and Policy Committee, the Humid Climate Conference Steering Committee, and the ULI Austin Resilience & Sustainability Committee. Trey is a Master of Architecture graduate from the University of Texas at Austin, holds a Master’s degree in Ecological Design from San Francisco Institute of Architecture, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Otago. Prior to his architecture and design work, Trey worked as a writer, bartender, job coach, teacher, carpenter, natural builder, community organizer, and orchardist. He enjoys gardening, swimming at Deep Eddy, hiking, and spending quality time with his family in the passive house he designed with his co-parent, Adrienne. SHOW YOUR SUPPORT If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and leave us a rating/review! Thank you for listening ✨ SHOW YOUR SUPPORT If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and leave us a rating/review! Thank you for listening ✨

    Passive House, Healthy Materials, and the Hierarchy of Healthy Building with Trey Farmer of Forge Craft Architecture | EP42
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Awakening Spaces explores the profound connection between our physical environments and our inner consciousness. We guide homeowners, designers, and wellness seekers beyond simply discussing "toxin-free" building methods to examine who we actually become on our "toxin-free" journey. In this podcast we’re not only talking about windows, walls, and wiring. Through expert interviews, case studies, and actionable guidance, we will explore how mindful design choices affect our relationships, stress levels, and overall well-being. Drawing from my background in design, building biology, and building science I guide listeners through both the practical and philosophical aspects of creating homes that elevate our health and consciousness. Each week, you’ll receive grounded guidance and actionable tips to help you eliminate the stress and overwhelm of finding, renovating, building, or maintaining your healthy home—so that you can create a space that truly supports who you are becoming. Just by tuning in, you’re already stepping into what it means to be an Awakened Homeowner. Together, we’re building a new way forward—one conscious choice at a time.

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