Melanie Loftus

I’ve worked with Melanie since the fall of 2014 when my husband and I started building our family home in Idaho. My husband and I both work in sustainability, and our goal was to build a green and healthy home. We’d read about hazardous chemicals in building materials, so we contacted Melanie to help us select products that would promote better indoor air quality for our kids and meet our green building goals as well.Melanie provided us with direction on specific products we could use for different phases of the project, including structural framing, MEP, and HVAC. She has also helped us identify healthy insulation and interior finishes such as flooring and grouts. She created a very helpful spreadsheet that our contractor can use to reference suggested materials, and he has been very happy for that resource!Melanie helped us make informed decisions based on current health research while also weighing the reality of working within a budget and needing to source building products in a reasonable amount of time. She also noted product healthiness vs functionality, which is very important too. We worked with Melanie completely remotely over phone and email. She responds promptly, works quickly, and is easy to communicate with. We would definitely recommend Melanie to help you build a healthy home!

We wanted to use the healthiest building materials possible for our remodel, and we were fortunate to have Melanie focused on research and in-depth review of materials. Also, she helped to keep us on track with our goal of preparing for Build It Green’s GreenPoint Rated (GPR) certification. Her work exceeded our expectations. Though I found some information online about building materials, I realized that there was a lot more to it. Simply put, I needed an expert! Melanie used references and resources that were new to me (Challenge Red List and Perkins+Will Precautionary List are two examples). I could count on Melanie to translate Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS). A few times, she contacted manufacturers so we had more information to help us with making our product choices. Melanie has strong communication skills. I appreciated her patience with questions. She never made me feel like I had a dumb question or unreasonable request. She had a good rapport with every member on the project, including our general contractor and designer. They were a model of collaboration. When a product was ready for screening, Melanie reviewed the MSDS, checked for GPR requirements, searched databases, and more while keeping to the construction schedule. Her positive attitude made it easy for everyone to have a constructive dialogue about product options, product performance, and health concerns. Melanie is a dedicated professional who thinks about the the long-term. She even made a post-construction cleaning product recommendation list. I felt like she genuinely cared about our project, and she has continued to keep in touch to see how things are going. I think everyone with a remodeling project, whether it be one room or a whole home, should be asking questions about what is being used. If you have Melanie on your team, you will be set with an amazing advocate.