Questions and answers
Straight answers to real questions.Straight answersto real questions.
About building in Los Angeles, healthy homes, the book and me. Search, pick a topic, or just read. If your question isn’t here, ask me.
- 32 answers
- 6 topics
- 5 with sources linked
- Updated October 2026
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Showing all 32 questions.
About me
Who I am and how I got here.
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I’m a Los Angeles home builder. I’m the founder and CEO of Energize Builders, I founded Energize Wellness Builders, and I’m writing Wellness Construction, a book about healthier homes that comes out in 2027.
I was born and raised in Israel and moved to Los Angeles in 2012. Construction wasn’t my first work in America. I came to it by choice, and I’ve been building here since 2016.
Today my team at Energize Builders has more than 20 years of Los Angeles construction experience behind it.
English, Hebrew and Russian.
Because of what I saw inside houses. Opening walls showed me what owners never see: mold behind new finishes, rooms with no fresh air, water nobody tested, materials nobody questioned. Once you’ve seen it, you build differently.
Use the contact form on the home page or email hello@alikkon.com. Messages come to me, and you’ll get a reply by email.
Building
Custom homes and renovations with Energize Builders.
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Yes, through Energize Builders, my construction company. We build custom homes and renovations in Los Angeles, including difficult hillside sites.
Construction services are offered and performed only by Energize Builders Inc., California CSLB Lic. #1112649 (B, General Building).
Yes. It’s our specialty: steep lots that need caissons, retaining walls, careful engineering and a plan for difficult site access. On a hillside, the parts you never see carry the house, so that’s where we put the most care.
Yes. Construction is carried out by Energize Builders Inc., which holds California contractor license #1112649 in the B (General Building) classification.
Yes. We can take a project from architectural plans and permits through construction, or build from plans your architect and designer have already drawn. We work alongside architects and designers regularly.
With a short note. Tell me what you want to build or change, where, and roughly when. If you have plans, photos or a survey, mention them. We’ll reply by email and take it from there.
It depends on the site, the size, the design and the finishes, and on a hillside the foundation alone can move the budget a long way. I’d rather give you a real number for your project than a range that means nothing, so send the details and we’ll start there.
Healthy homes
Wellness construction, and what the evidence says.
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General information about building, not medical advice.
Building a home around what the people in it are exposed to all day and all night: the air they breathe, the water they drink, the light they live in, the materials around them, moisture and sound. It’s the same craft as any good build, with those exposures treated as part of the design instead of an afterthought.
The company I founded to build new homes, and retrofit existing ones, around those exposures: air, water, light, materials, moisture and sound.
No builder can promise a health outcome, and I won’t. A home can reduce some exposures, such as polluted indoor air, damp and mold, or contaminated water. What that means for your health is a question for your doctor.
I sort every idea into one of three groups: proven by established building science, promising but still being studied, or hype with nothing behind it. I tell you which is which before you spend money.
Three things, in this order: keep pollution from getting in, bring in fresh outdoor air, then filter what’s left. In a build, that means low-emitting materials and finishes, ventilation designed to reach every room, and good filtration.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calls source control usually the most effective of the three.
Sources: EPA: Improving indoor air quality
By controlling water. As the EPA puts it, the key to mold control is moisture control. We design and build to keep water out and let the house dry: drainage, flashing and waterproofing that work, ventilation that removes humidity, and materials that tolerate getting wet.
If water does get in, the EPA advises drying it within 24 to 48 hours.
Sources: EPA: A brief guide to mold, moisture and your home
Yes. Radon is a radioactive gas you can’t see or smell that comes from the ground, and the EPA estimates it is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers. The EPA and the Surgeon General recommend testing every home below the third floor, and the EPA calls testing inexpensive and easy.
The EPA recommends fixing a home when radon is 4 pCi/L or more, and considering a fix between 2 and 4.
Sources: EPA: Health risk of radon · EPA: A citizen’s guide to radon (PDF) · EPA: The radon action level
I put EMF in the “being studied, not proven” group. In 2011 the WHO’s cancer agency classed radiofrequency fields as possibly carcinogenic, based on limited evidence. Since then, a 2024 review commissioned by the WHO, covering research from 1994 to 2022, found no link between mobile phone use and brain cancer, and the WHO says research so far has not shown low-level fields to be harmful.
Some clients still want lower exposure, and that’s simple to design for: wired network connections where you want them, routers and electrical panels placed away from bedrooms, and a way to switch Wi-Fi off at night. I’ll tell you what it costs and what it can and can’t do.
Sources: IARC (WHO) press release, 2011 · ARPANSA on the 2024 WHO review · WHO: Electromagnetic fields
Some of it costs very little if it is planned before construction: moisture details, ventilation design and material choices. The same fixes cost more once the walls are closed. And some wellness products cost a lot and do very little, which is exactly why I sort ideas before you spend.
Yes. Energize Wellness Builders also retrofits existing homes, not only new builds. Tell me about the house and what you’d like to change.
A field that started in Germany and studies how buildings affect the health of the people inside them and the environment around them. I’m working toward certification in it.
Sources: Building Biology Institute
The book
Wellness Construction, coming in 2027.
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Everything I know about wellness and construction, in one book. It’s written for the people who will live in the house, in plain language, with the same rule about evidence: proven, promising or hype. You don’t need a construction background to read it.
In 2027. Join the waitlist and you’ll get an email when pre-orders open and when it’s out.
Emails about the book’s publication, for example when pre-orders open and when it’s out. Nothing else and no other lists, and every email has a simple way to unsubscribe.
How we handle waitlist addresses
Talks & press
Podcasts, talks and interviews.
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Yes. Use the contact form and choose “Interview, podcast or talk”. Tell me about the audience, the format and the date.
Four subjects, each from the job site rather than the stage:
- What builders see inside walls
- Proven, promising, hype: how to judge wellness ideas for a home
- Building on difficult hillside sites
- From Israel to building in Los Angeles
Yes. A short biography is on the home page, ready to copy as written. For anything else, send a note through the contact form.
This site
Privacy and accessibility.
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No. It sets no cookies and uses no analytics, ad tags or third-party scripts. Fonts, images and the film are served from this site itself.
Yes. Open Accessibility in the header to change the text size and colors, switch to a more readable font, add space between lines, highlight links, show a reading guide, or stop all animations and the film. Your choices are saved only in your browser.
Open accessibility settingsAccessibility statement
Your message or sign-up is delivered to our email inbox through our email delivery service; the website itself stores nothing. We use it only to reply to you or, for the waitlist, to email you about the book. We never sell or share it.
Privacy policy, including how to ask us to delete it
Still curious
Didn’t find your question?
Send it to me. Messages come to my inbox, and you’ll get a reply by email.
The answers about health are general information about building, not medical advice. A home can reduce some exposures; it cannot promise a health outcome. Speak to a doctor about your health.