How To Test Your Hardwood Floors For Formaldehyde

Safe indoor formaldehyde levels should not exceed 0 10mg according to this test.

How to test your hardwood floors for formaldehyde.

Engineered hardwood with phenol formaldehyde resins can still emit some level of formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is an ever present colorless gas that can give off a pickle like smell. It has been commonly used in home products for decades in everything from certain types of wood flooring to. We know that formaldehyde in your flooring can sound really scary but unless the levels are above what the california air resource board determined is safe you have nothing to worry about.

If you re having symptoms of formaldehyde exposure that go away when you leave your house professional air testing may be a good idea. Formaldehyde is a compound chemical made up of carbon hydrogen and oxygen that is found literally everywhere since it occurs naturally and is synthesized for industrial use in everyday products. You can easily tell if an engineered hardwood or any manufactured hardwood is up to code by asking seeing if the flooring is carb2 compliant. Note that removing flooring in particular new laminate flooring may increase formaldehyde release.

Although plywood used in engineered hardwood floors are commonly manufactured using a phenol formaldehyde resins these days phenol formaldehyde resins still contains formaldehyde and emits formaldehyde ten times more than solid hardwood. Wood products typically evaluated by this test method are made with urea formaldehyde adhesives and include particleboard hardwood plywood and medium density fiberboard. However the standards can provide a benchmark for evaluating formaldehyde emissions from a product and a sample of your laminate wood flooring can be tested. Formaldehyde gas testing for laminate other flooring products.

If the levels in your home are high or if your exposure through other products is high you can have things like burning eyes nose and throat asthmatic attacks skin irritation headaches and nausea. Truly green and healthy flooring for the chemically sensitive and health conscious buyer. I tested our living room the kids rooms and our basement. This test method is used for product quality control and is a small bench test method that correlates with the large scale acceptance test for determining formaldehyde.

Non toxic laminate vinyl tile engineered wood carpet. We describe methods of testing for formaldehyde gas indoors and we discuss possible steps to remove formaldehyde gas and formaldehyde gas emitting laminated floor or other outgassing products in order to improve indoor air quality in homes. How to make an accurate representative test for formaldehyde outgassing from flooring. Natural low voc 0 voc and formaldehyde free flooring options.