Composite wood: Formaldehyde avoidance, not legal conformance

Thanks Tom, you are right, the California composite wood formaldehyde emissions limits are in the process of adoption as a U.S. federal requirement. Please note the old composite wood credit, which provided a point for composite wood emissions compliance alone, has been eliminated in this proposal for everything except built-in cabinetry, architectural woodwork, and composite wood flooring, which effectively makes composite wood compliance to the pending federal requirements a pre-requisite when the law is completed. Everyone involved with drafting the proposed credit agreed full VOC emissions testing for cabinets and woodwork would be best. Unfortunately there are two reasons that built-in cabinetry and architectural woodwork is not subject to full VOC emissions testing requirements in the proposed credit. #1. We need an exposure scenario with defined loading of cabinets (or woodwork) and airflow for each scenario (e.g., residential, classroom, commercial office) in order to translate test chamber measurements to a standard environment condition that is linked to actual buildings. #2. Many built-in cabinets are custom built on site, and therefore do not lend themselves to assembled cabinet testing in chamber very well. The FAQ document available under the Birds Eye View tab on this page also addresses this question. Composite wood flooring was apparently a late addition to the proposal, which is inconsistent with the above problems (#1 and #2) as all flooring materials are subject to the full VOC emissions testing requirements. Issues #1 and #2 are clear standard development needs that must be addressed before we can appropriately require full VOC emissions testing from built-in cabinets and architectural woodwork.