You bought the low-VOC paint, picked the eco-friendly flooring, and did everything the labels told you to do. So why does your fresh, earth-friendly space still leave you feeling stuffy, foggy, or worn down? For building expert Andrew Pace, the answer starts with a question most of us never think to ask: healthy home vs. green home, which one did you build? The two aren’t the same thing, and this week on Homes That Heal, Andrew joined Jen to explain why that difference matters for the air you breathe and the way you feel every day.

Meet Andrew Pace, Healthy Home Materials Expert

Andrew Pace has spent more than three decades in the building industry, working with over 30,000 clients along the way. As the founder of The Green Design Center and host of the Non-Toxic Environments podcast, he specializes in the materials, methods, and systems that make a house safe to live in. His focus stays narrow but crucial: chemical sensitivity, mold-related illness, and the everyday building products that shape how you feel inside your own four walls.

What sets Andrew apart is his refusal to fear-monger. Rather than pushing you toward a full gut renovation, he teaches a calmer, more affordable way to lower your home’s toxic load. That mindset runs through the whole conversation.

Healthy Home vs. Green Home: What’s the Difference?

For years, “green” has been the gold standard for the conscientious homeowner. However, green and healthy measure two very different things. As Andrew explains it, green describes whether a product is better for the environment, while healthy describes whether that same product is better for the people breathing near it every day. So the healthy home vs. green home gap comes down to something real: the difference between a house that photographs well and one that helps your body settle.

The two goals do overlap sometimes, yet they often pull in opposite directions. Take spray foam insulation. Few materials are more energy efficient, so it scores beautifully on the green report card. Unfortunately, it can also off-gas for years after installation, which makes it a shaky choice for a truly healthy home.

Why “Green” Doesn’t Always Mean Healthy

Marketing is a big part of the problem. Because eco-friendly labels sell, manufacturers reach for words like “low-VOC,” “natural,” and “sustainable” without proving those products are safe for humans. Andrew calls a lot of this crafty marketing, and he’s watched it confuse well-meaning homeowners for decades.

To see how the confusion took hold, it helps to know what a VOC really is and why anyone started measuring it in the first place.

What “Low-VOC” Really Measures

VOC stands for volatile organic compound, which is a fancy way of describing a chemical that evaporates off a material at room temperature and floats into the air you breathe. Wet paint is the classic example. As it cures on your walls, it releases these compounds for days, and since paint covers roughly 75 to 80% of the surfaces in your house, that off-gassing has an outsized effect on your indoor air quality.

When the EPA started limiting VOCs in the mid-1990s, the goal was cleaning up outdoor air pollution, not protecting the people inside the house. Those evaporating paint chemicals drift into the upper atmosphere, react with nitrogen and sunlight, and help form low-level smog. So the agency treated paint a little like car exhaust and capped how many VOCs each product category could contain.

Notice what those rules were built to do: protect the air outside, not your lungs. To this day, according to Andrew, no federal regulation limits VOCs because of what they do to a home’s occupants. Every one of those limits traces back to outdoor air quality.

Whether a chemical counts as a VOC comes down to how it behaves once it hits the outdoor air, not what it does to your lungs. The label is measuring smog potential, plain and simple. So plenty of compounds that are harmful to breathe were never classified as VOCs at all. A can of paint can be truthfully labeled zero-VOC and still carry chemicals that are rough on the person rolling it onto the wall. Nothing sneaky is happening with the label. The word was simply never built to measure human safety, and that, in a single paint can, is the difference between a green home and a healthy home.

The Sources of a Toxic Home

If green labels won’t tell you the whole story, where should you look instead? Andrew points straight to the materials you see and touch every single day.

Where Mold Starts

Mold starts with moisture that gets trapped somewhere and can’t dry out. Wood that stays wet for as little as 48 hours can start growing mold, so any dampness sealed inside a wall becomes a slow-building problem. Homes built in the 1990s and 2000s were often sealed extremely tight to save energy, which held moisture in as much as it kept weather out.

That brings up one of Andrew’s favorite myths to bust. People love to say a house needs to breathe. In truth, the occupants need to breathe, while the house simply needs a smart way to release moisture through its surfaces. Miss that balance, and mold moves right in.

The Carpet, Flooring, and Furniture Problem

Flooring is often the single biggest chemical offender in the entire house. Synthetic carpet, in particular, can keep off-gassing formaldehyde for 30 years or more, according to Andrew’s own testing. On top of that, cabinetry, wall finishes, area rugs, window treatments, and furniture all pile on.

In fact, Andrew estimates that about 90% of the chemical off-gassing in a home comes from these everyday items you see and touch after you move in. That’s the flooring, finishes, cabinetry, and furnishings you live with every day. So if there’s room in the budget for upgrades, that’s where a dollar tends to do the most for the air you breathe.

Your Home and the Inflammation Bucket

So why does any of this matter for your health? Andrew uses a simple picture to explain it: the inflammation bucket. Every stressor your body meets pours a little water into that bucket, whether it’s a poor night’s sleep, a hard week, or the low-level chemical exposure in your home.

Trouble starts once the bucket overflows. When you reduce the inflammatory inputs in your environment, you give your body more room to handle everything else it’s carrying. This is the link Andrew draws between our built spaces and chronic illness, and it’s why he treats the home as a foundation for health rather than a decorating project.

Healthy Home vs. Green Home on Any Budget

What separates Andrew from the typical wellness influencer is his budget-first realism. He won’t tell you to bulldoze the house and start over. Instead, he wants you making steady, affordable progress that your body can feel. Viewed that way, the healthy home vs. green home choice stops being an expensive all-or-nothing decision and becomes a series of small, smart ones.

Start With Your Bedroom and Your Air

If you only fix one room, make it the bedroom. Since you spend six to eight hours there every night, clean air during sleep does more for your recovery than almost anything else. A solid air purifier, even a $300 unit, can make a real dent in the space where it counts most.

Air quality earns this top spot because we spend roughly 90% of our lives indoors. That number catches most people off guard. Once it sinks in, though, the case for better indoor air quality gets hard to argue with.

The Sensible Homeowner Approach

Perfectionism is the sneaky enemy of a healthier home. Andrew has watched countless people freeze up because they can’t afford a flawless, top-to-bottom fix, so they do nothing while the problem grows. His advice stays refreshingly grounded: do a good job with what you can afford, then keep going when you’re able.

Mold remediation is a great example. A full professional job can run around $30 per square foot, which can push a whole-home project toward the price of a new house. Naturally, that sticker shock scares plenty of people into paralysis. Meanwhile, a smaller, affordable step still beats leaving the mold untouched. The same logic covers saunas, insulation, and air filtration. Buy the version you can afford, use it often, and you’re already ahead of where you started.

The Mental Health Side of a Healthier Home

One of the most overlooked pieces of this whole topic is mental health. Andrew even devoted a chapter of his book to it, because the stress of living in a home you don’t trust takes a real toll. Constant worry keeps your nervous system stuck in fight-or-flight, which fuels the very inflammation you’re trying to calm.

Doom-scrolling only makes it worse. Endless posts about mold, toxins, and worst-case scenarios keep anxiety high while rarely offering a clear next step. Andrew’s tip: once you’ve made a plan with someone you trust, step away from social media and let the professionals do their work. Peace of mind belongs on your home wellness checklist, not in the “nice to have” column.

Your Home Starts With One Decision

The biggest shift Andrew hopes you’ll make is mental rather than material. Stop chasing a perfect, Instagram-approved house, and start asking a better question: how do you want to feel when you walk through your front door? That single question turns the healthy home vs. green home debate into something personal and doable.

When you walk in like a visitor in your own space, you quickly notice what’s working and what isn’t. From there, you can make one honest, affordable decision at a time. That’s how a healthier home gets built, through steady choices that add up, one weekend at a time.

About Andrew Pace

Andrew Pace is a Healthy Home Materials Expert and the founder of The Green Design Center. For more than three decades, he has been a trusted resource for homeowners and contractors seeking the intersection of sustainability and human health. As the host of the Non-Toxic Environments podcast, he also provides consulting on the materials, methods, and systems required to build truly safe living spaces. He specializes in the highly technical field of chemical sensitivity and mold-related remediation, including CIRS and MCAS. His new book, Building for Health, distills over 30 years of work into plain-language guidance, and it’s available as a free download at buildingforhealth.com or in print on Amazon.

Links & Resources

• Find Andrew and grab his free book, Building for Health: buildingforhealth.com
• Listen to Andrew’s show, the Non-Toxic Environments Podcast
• Follow Andrew on Instagram
• Take a peek at my Jen Recommends list to see more of my favorite products.
• Grab my FREE Home Wellness Checklist here for more tips.

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Disclaimer: This podcast is for general information purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional health care services. The statements and views expressed are not medical advice and are not meant to replace the advice of your medical doctor. This podcast, including Jen Heller and her guests, disclaims any responsibility and any adverse effects you may experience from the specific use of the information contained herein. The opinions of guests are their own and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for the statements made by guests. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you think you have a medical condition, consult your licensed physician.