Desert Star Construction: Create a Healthier Home

Knowing his area of expertise, we talked with Jeremy Meek, vice president of Scottsdale-based Desert Star Construction, to understand the latest trends in the industry and how homeowners can take a more holistic approach to integrating wellness into their homes.

Photo by Dmitry Zimin / Shutterstock

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FRESHER INDOOR AIR
No matter how hard we try, dust, pollutants and allergens can still find their way into the home, making good ventilation a must in creating a healthier home. While many residences are being built “tighter” for better energy efficiency, that doesn’t always equate to better indoor air quality, especially if a residence contains high VOC paint or building materials and fabrics containing unhealthy formaldehyde.

In order to help counteract stale indoor air, homeowners are installing energy recovery ventilators (ERV).

“ERVs help supply fresh indoor air by filtering fresh outdoor air into the home,” Meek said. “As the fresh air passes through the ERV, it passes through an energy transfer core that helps condition the incoming air with the outgoing conditioned air to help reduce energy costs.”

Desert Star Construction - Architect: Kendle Design Collaborative, Interiors: David Michael Miller, Photographer: Alexander Vertikoff

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NATURAL INDOOR LIGHTING
Is too much screen time giving you the blues? Studies show that continuous exposure to blue light from your TV, phone or computer screens can hamper your ability to fall asleep. Making sure you get an adequate amount of sleep helps you remain healthy in your home as well.

“It messes with your circadian rhythm, which is the body’s natural time clock that signals such things as when to get up or go to sleep,” Meek said.

A home’s LED lighting can also affect the way you feel. That’s why it’s important to understand unique ways to make you feel healthy at home. No matter how much you dim or brighten them, LEDs produce the same color temperature, which is not the way natural light behaves. According to the experts at KETRA, a lighting technology firm, “Light in nature is a fluid presence, like sunshine, firelight and the soft beam of the moon. From an aesthetic perspective, natural light provides a far more satisfying environment to live and work in than its artificial counterpart.”

To capture the natural rhythms of light indoors, the company has designed a lighting system that mimics the way outdoor light shifts throughout the day.

“Circadian lighting systems help optimize the body’s natural response to light and helps offset any negative effects of screen time or other light sources,” Meek said.

Photo by Cozine / Shutterstock

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HEALTHIER DRINKING WATER
While many homes are designed with reverse-osmosis systems to remove impurities from the water, this process also eliminates a number of important minerals, including calcium and magnesium, which can be healthy for your home if tested properly.

Now, it’s possible to have your own water sent out for testing and specific minerals added back. This is called remineralizing.

“Trace minerals are what help make water taste good,” Meek said. “With some homeowners fed up with the ‘snake oil’ nature of many ‘water filtration systems’ that are pandered by some salespeople, there has been a migration back to the centuries-old, tried and true active carbon filtration systems. If testing of specific municipal water results in the need for additional filtration of some type, additive filtering can be tuned as needed.”

Photo by Alhim / Shutterstock

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HOME SALT ROOMS
For the ultimate in skin and respiratory care, salt rooms and salt booths are finding their way into the home to make it a healthy sanctuary. These dedicated spaces are used for halotherapy, also known as dry salt therapy, a practice that consists of sitting in a specially ventilated room or enclosed unit and breathing in pulverized medical-grade salt particles dispersed by a halo generator.

Why not translate creating a healthy home into mimicking a spa? The salt is believed to draw toxins and impurities out of the body, reduce inflammation, provide relaxation and reduce stress.

“Fifteen minutes in a salt room is also said to help with a number of skin conditions and breathing issues, such as asthma, bronchitis, coughs and colds,” Meek said. “It’s ideal for the homeowner who doesn’t want to go out to a spa for a treatment.”

Desert Star Construction - Architect: Kendle Design Collaborative, Photographer: Alexander Vertikoff

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SMARTER SMART SYSTEMS
Smart-home virtual assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Home Kit have been around for a while, but homeowners can take it a step farther with voice control services that are pre-wired throughout the residence. A healthy home can also be one that makes daily tasks easier.

“You can tell your house what to do just by talking out loud without having to stand next to your Alexa or Apple unit,” Meek said. “It allows for better interaction with the home control system, without having consumer-grade products sitting around the home.”

Plus, the advanced home control systems have a “graduate degree” in many of the voice commands that occur more frequently in the context of a healthy home.

“Further, issues of privacy can be better navigated with the advanced home control systems because the commands are all routed to a local computer,” he said. “Nothing is in the cloud and no third-party data mining services have access to what is heard over the microphones in your home.”

Josh is one of the leading home voice control platforms. Whether working with Josh or other similar platforms, microphones can be pre-wired into the home in ways that make them fully concealed and out of sight.

Photo by Marina_D / Shutterstock

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ZONE-OUT ROOMS
Disconnecting can mean different things to different people, depending on how they perceive a healthy home. For some, it may be finding a quiet space to meditate, practice yoga or simply get a good night’s sleep. For others, it can be turning off the phone, computer and TV. Then there are those who want nothing to do with the outside world, and they are opting to install Faraday cages in certain parts of their homes.

Faraday cages are specific rooms or spaces in the house where electromagnetic waves can be blocked from coming in. Some people view a healthier home as one that feels secluded from the stressors of the outside world.

“You have no connectivity to the outside world and, therefore, some people believe it helps protect them from any negative effects of electromagnetic frequencies,” Meek said. “Basically, these are media and signal-free spaces and they give people a break from bombardment by all the invisible signals surrounding us each day.”

Desert Star Construction - Architect: Kendle Design Collaborative, Photographer: Alexander Vertikoff

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NATURAL POOL PURIFIERS
Want to swim in water so pure that it not only sanitizes the water but also helps oxygenate your blood, reduces red eye and respiration problems and leaves your skin feeling super soft? Make your home healthier with zone purification systems that inject medical-grade oxygen into the water’s circulation system and can be used in place of typical disinfection chemicals.

“Heightened oxygen levels in the water provide greater comfort to bathers much like salt water, except healthier,” according to the folks at Exceptional Water Systems. “Those with hypoallergenic skin, psoriasis, eczema and other skin issues can now enjoy water that can be a healing experience. It’s very similar to being in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber except with the ‘natural pressure’ of water.”

Adding ozone also creates more sparkling, clearer water, and, when properly treated, can be used to feed surrounding vegetation and “help it grow up to four times larger and faster with half the water than if you used tap water,” the company said.

While new technology and future proofing is making homes healthier, we hope it helps you to live happier and live beautifully.

This story was produced in partnership with our friends at Desert Star Construction. For more information about building a home for the future, click here.