VOCs from LVP

[Dlass]

I'm replacing a many decades-old vinyl/linoleum floor in a 600 square foot living area, and have pretty much decided that Luxury Vinyl Plank (LVP) is what I'm looking for. More suitable than other options. One thing that concerns me is VOCs, which I gather are emitted from both the planks and the adhesive. Now, I will do this in the fall where, in my climate, the house can be open continuously and the house fan on for a few weeks, but still ... I hear it said that there are LVPs that are manufactured to minimize VOCs, and some adhesives are better as well. Would appreciate getting some brand names - LVPs that I can choose for the job, and adhesives that I can suggest to my contractor.

 

[Dlass]

OK, I think the answer is FloorScore Certification.
https://www.scsglobalservices.com/services/floorscore
https://www.scsglobalservices.com/certified-green-products-guide?category=63+124+943&program=25
and for that matter, there is the GreenGuard Certification as well.
Both GreenGuard and FloorScore certification meet the OSHA standard for VOCs. There is a GreenGuard Gold, which is half the VOC of regular Green Guard, but that's mainly for schools and health care facilities. Not clear that's available for residential use. Need to make sure the product I purchase meets these certs, and the contractor is using adhesives that abide by them. There is one brand - Proximity Mills, I believe, that allegedly has zero VOCs.

 

[Incognito]

OK, I think the answer is FloorScore Certification.
https://www.scsglobalservices.com/services/floorscore
https://www.scsglobalservices.com/certified-green-products-guide?category=63+124+943&program=25
and for that matter, there is the GreenGuard Certification as well.
Both GreenGuard and FloorScore certification meet the OSHA standard for VOCs. There is a GreenGuard Gold, which is half the VOC of regular Green Guard, but that's mainly for schools and health care facilities. Not clear that's available for residential use. Need to make sure the product I purchase meets these certs, and the contractor is using adhesives that abide by them. There is one brand - Proximity Mills, I believe, that allegedly has zero VOCs.

It's all pretty highly technical on the level you're looking for. Very, very few installers, sales/retailers, marketing departments, distributors would have a scientific understanding of how, what, when, where and why such products could be determined safe and green.

So we're left to trust sources like you cite above. I dont trust them.

 

[Dlass]

I'm not asking for a scientific understanding. I'm just asking for certification from those that DO have scientific understanding. OK, why don't you trust FloorScore and GreenGuard? Do you have some scientific understanding that they don't? That's precisely WHY there is FloorScore and GreenGuard. Because of the valid assumption is that most of us don't have that understanding. If this is about trust, your qualifications for judgement would be appreciated.

 

[Incognito]

I'm not asking for a scientific understanding. I'm just asking for certification from those that DO have scientific understanding. OK, why don't you trust FloorScore and GreenGuard? Do you have some scientific understanding that they don't? That's precisely WHY there is FloorScore and GreenGuard. Because of the valid assumption is that most of us don't have that understanding. If this is about trust, your qualifications for judgement would be appreciated.

As Quality Control and Site Safety and Health Officer my job was to submit all the materials to be used on government and military construction projects for review and approval by the customer's QC. I was also exposed to pretty much every and any hazards more specifically in our industry over my ~35 year as a commercial installer/foreman. I've been retired about a year and a half now.

From my own admittedly casual research and specific related experiences I am more and more skeptical of these various agencies our corporations and ultimately citizens rely on to "greenwash" their products.

 

[Dlass]

Thank you. That's fair. But I really don't have anything else to go on. I asked for suggestions about products with low VOC. Can you point me to some reliable source? Now, it is written that these certifications are consistent with OSHA regulations. I trust OSHA. Are you saying you don't trust the labwork done to do these certifications? As in, their VOC measurements are simply wrong?

 

[Incognito]

I'm sure the science is accurate. But I dont really know what that implies. Mostly I dont trust the industry to represent the science TO ME in a way that I can use.

By the way, my son is a scientist as was my father. They both have explained to me how their work CANT be easily explained to laymen. Less so for my dad who made actual metals and materials in his lab------like coinage and bullets. But my son's lab is biomolecular physics-----Integrative Structural and Computational Biology

So after I paid over a hundred grand to get him his degree I don't even know what the heck he does with it!!!

 

[Dlass]

Thanks. I'm a scientist/engineer as it turns out, so I respect the kind of work that this involves, but it's true, that if it is some certification set up by the industries that make the product, one might be a little suspicious about it.

 

[Incognito]

I'll eventually replace the carpet and LVP in my house with hardwood and tile.

...............eventually

 

[MSLI]

I unwrapped a carpet remnant ( plastic wrap) over this past weekend. It’s been resting in its VOC juices for years. It was scientifically designed to tolerate moisture by giving the backing a shinny black vinyl coating …. I have a customer looking for indoor, outdoor for his back porch, but I’m apprehensive to sell him a chemically laden one. It won’t grow mold but it may not be too pleasant eating breakfast in there.

Here’s my unscientific opinion on Life Proof Flooring. The apartment complex I install carpet for, has been installing LVP in newly renovated Lr,Dr, kitchen areas and my VOC NOSE ALARM hasn’t gone off yet. My carpet and pad give off more …. Good luck on your search

Rocket Man, and all the science I don’t understand, it’s just my job five days a week

 

[Commercial Floor Rep]

I'll share with you what I feel is as accurate of information as I've been able to ascertain over the past 29 years.

The market is currently flooded with LVP/LVT products that are primarily sourced from Asia (China, Vietnam, Malayasia, South Korea, and most recently India). The large manufacturers of these products work with manufacturing partners in those countries to produce their products. There are different models that these manufacturers follow. Some provide the manufacturing plant with specific specifications and have "boots on the ground" in those plants making sure that the specifications are being met. Some go to the manufacturing plant and say "give me what you make standard and put these patterns on it". Some oversight, but they primarily rely on the honesty of their Asian partner to manufacture the product to the emissions standards required. Last, there are an absolute glut of small importers, primarily larger flooring retailers here in the U.S. that make contact with an Asian partner at a trade show here in the U.S. and there are Asian manufactures who have "turnkey" operations where they will provide you with the product, do the marketing under your trade name, ship the product, and so on. These guys have very little "skin" in the game. They are simply paying to put their name on the box. Then they portray themselves, pretty stealthily in many cases, to be the direct manufacturer of the product. In trying to answer questions for customers as a resource, I've found some of these guys whose "Corporate Headquarters" when googled is a package receptacle at a UPS store in a strip mall in Georgia.

Most major manufacturers (Armstrong, Mannington, Mohawk, & Shaw for sure) manufacture their products to meet SCAQMD (South Coast Air Quality Management District) standards. These are the California regulations that govern VOC's for that state. In order to sell any product in the state of California, you must comply with their minimums or you simply cannot sell products there. These standards are more stringent than the federal standards, so essentially they are the DeFacto standards our industry complies with. No one's going to not try and sell products in the 5th largest economy in the world, right, wrong, or indifferent.

VOC's in LVP/LVT primarily come from the esters (oils) that are used in the product to provide flexibility. Thus, going with a "dry-back", also known as a glue-down, product will have more (esters) than a rigid product such as an SPC or a WPC.

If we look at a fairly common formulation for glue-down LVP, in many cases these products are going to be 70-90% PVC and the bulk of the remainder will be binder and filler (primarily clay). SPC is nearly the opposite with a 15-20% PVC content and the remainder being stone dust (typically limestone but other stones are also being used such as marble). WPC is kind of between the two at about 50-50, but WPC typically has air entrained into the core to provide sound deadening and a thicker, but lighter product.

Since esters form week covalent bonds that can be broken leading to a release of VOC's, then going with a more rigid product eliminates the potential for VOC's to occur. BUT, it is critical to remember that with the manufacturers I've listed, none of them come close to the SQAQMD minimums and in many cases the amount of VOC's from the product are nearly unmeasurable.

I would also be remiss if I didn't add that there are companies who manufacture these products with non-PVC alternatives. Many of them are European manufacturers who take a different view of PVC than we do here in the U.S. However, my experience with those products has been that they have their own set of issues that can cause problems and many of them don't have the sustainability of the products with PVC and must be replaced much more often.

I can try and provide further information if you have specific questions, but hopefully this gives you enough to make a decision without fearing your decision might impact your health. Trust me when I say that there are a mountain of lawyers who would be suing these companies into non-existence as well as FloorScore if the testing was being "fudged". Google Lumber Liquidators Cancer Lawsuit and you'll see what I mean.

 

[Incognito]

Yeah........what he said.

 

[Dlass]

Excellent info. Thank you. Not sure I understand about "flexibility" and glue-down. Why does a "glue-down need any flexibility at all? At least as opposed to peel-and-stick, which needs to be bent to apply properly.

 

[C.J.]

Only difference between peel n stick and glue down LVP, aside from quality, is when and where the adhesive is applied.

They both need flexibility otherwise how are they going to contour and adhere to the substrate.

 

[Commercial Floor Rep]

Excellent info. Thank you. Not sure I understand about "flexibility" and glue-down. Why does a "glue-down need any flexibility at all? At least as opposed to peel-and-stick, which needs to be bent to apply properly.

Physics alway wins.

No matter how good a flooring mechanic is, there will always be variations in the flatness of a subfloor. Some of these are there due to expansion and contraction during the seasonal changes in the structure. The product has to be flexible enough to handle these minor variations to be able to bond it to the substrate.

There is also ALWAYS movement inherent in any built structure. Depending on the mix, a concrete slab can expand and contract up to an inch in a 20' span with seasonal changes. That's why there are movement and control joints in concrete. Movement joints allow for this expansion and contraction to occur and control joints help control where cracking occurs and give them a "weak" spot to follow when cracking occurs. (Notice I said "when" not if, all concrete cracks due to movement over time). Wood also expands and contracts seasonally, but at a much different rate than concrete and depending on how the wood substrate is constructed it can be faster or slower.

Due to minor floor flatness irregularities and thermal expansion and contraction, if directly adhered flooring wasn't flexible it would have a litany of problems - popping off the floor, cracking and buckling, gapping, etc.

To broaden the scope a little and provide another example, this is also why the TCNA (Tile Council of North America) states in their porcelain and stone installation guidelines that all movement joints MUST be honored from the substrate all the way through the installation of the product. You can't stop that movement.

This is also why it's necessary to leave expansion space around floating floors such the current SPC & WPC luxury vinyl plank and tile products as well as laminates and engineered hardwoods that are installed using a floating method.

Hope that gives some insight.

 

[highup]

Physics alway wins.

No matter how good a flooring mechanic is, there will always be variations in the flatness of a subfloor. Some of these are there due to expansion and contraction during the seasonal changes in the structure. The product has to be flexible enough to handle these minor variations to be able to bond it to the substrate.

There is also ALWAYS movement inherent in any built structure. Depending on the mix, a concrete slab can expand and contract up to an inch in a 20' span with seasonal changes. That's why there are movement and control joints in concrete. Movement joints allow for this expansion and contraction to occur and control joints help control where cracking occurs and give them a "weak" spot to follow when cracking occurs. (Notice I said "when" not if, all concrete cracks due to movement over time). Wood also expands and contracts seasonally, but at a much different rate than concrete and depending on how the wood substrate is constructed it can be faster or slower.

Due to minor floor flatness irregularities and thermal expansion and contraction, if directly adhered flooring wasn't flexible it would have a litany of problems - popping off the floor, cracking and buckling, gapping, etc.

To broaden the scope a little and provide another example, this is also why the TCNA (Tile Council of North America) states in their porcelain and stone installation guidelines that all movement joints MUST be honored from the substrate all the way through the installation of the product. You can't stop that movement.

This is also why it's necessary to leave expansion space around floating floors such the current SPC & WPC luxury vinyl plank and tile products as well as laminates and engineered hardwoods that are installed using a floating method.

Hope that gives some insight.

I'm not sure what we'd to without you here, Mr Smarty Pants.....
You're explanations are so thorough and as technical as they are, still understandable.

 

[Commercial Floor Rep]

I'm not sure what we'd to without you here, Mr Smarty Pants.....
You're explanations are so thorough and as technical as they are, still understandable.

Thanks for your kind words. There are many here who are much more knowledgeable than me though.

Sleepless nights and the stress of dealing with high dollar commercial claims will lead you to read and learn the oddest things. That and having to be the "answer" guy walking into a room full of pissed off owners, architects, lawyers, general contractors, flooring contractors and having to explain and prove what happened. Being the proverbial "Barer of Bad News" is never fun, but after doing it several thousand times, you either go crazy or learn to explain things in an understandable way. Never had to resort to crayons on napkins, but I felt like I was close a few times. And for thorougness I'm also crazy, I have a doctor's note that proves it.

Honestly, being able to provide help here is a way for me to relieve stress and feel like I'm actually helping someone rather than having to tell someone they screwed up (usually "again") and still figure out a way to bail them out and keep them as a customer at the same time. Hopefully, here we can save them from having a problem rather than dealing with it after the fact.

(Sorry, I'm going to opine a little here in this next section, but it's been one of those weeks and it's only Wednesday...)

My only wish is that people in the industry, especially those who are supposed to know, would take the job more seriously and professionally. We have all these organizations now "certifying" people who are supposed to know what they are talking about that don't even bother to read installation instructions for a given product.

I recently had a situation where I was involved with three different claims for different products. Three different inspection reports were done by three different "certified" inspectors. In all 3 cases, statements were made in the inspection reports citing:

• "industry standards" that simply do not exist and do not comply with the manufacturers written instructions regarding concrete moisture testing.
• Measurements showing supposed floor flatness irregularities that were outside the manufacturers written tolerances where the inspector didn't do the math correctly converting a fraction and the measurements were actually within tolerance
• Equipment being used that has not been properly calibrated or is acceptable for the type of testing being done (i.e. using a non-invasive impedance meter to "measure moisture" (which isn't correct, and is a whole other topic of conversation) while having it set to the wrong settings for what is being tested. Then taking a picture of said test being conducted with the meter set to the wrong settings (setting for "wood" rather "masonry" and then citing the findings for proof that the flooring "had no manufacturing defect". How dumb can we be in one report?

These are people who are actually charging for their services and simply are not knowledgeable enough to do their job correctly or are too lazy to even bother to check that what they are using as evidence to deny a claim is even correct. AND they have been credentialled by an industry organization!

To make matters worse, these three inspections were all reviewed, and the reports written by a 3rd party who also did not check that the information was accurate before submitting it. THEN, the manufacturer's claims department didn't catch any of the errors and used the report to deny a claim. We were able to refute the claims and get them correctly replaced, but still, it's just ridiculous. The inspector got it wrong, the inspectors reporting company got it wrong, and then the claims department got it wrong.

And in all three cases these guys are still out there doing inspections every day.

It just makes me completely furious that our industry tolerates this nonsense.

I have friends who have retired and gone through some of these so called "inspection training schools" to get credentials and they've basically just become a "pay to play" gimmick. Not all of them mind you, but that's the problem. We, as an industry, need to have a single governing body that oversees and approves - without influence from any outside forces such as manufacturing - the standards by which we hold ourselves accountable. Although it sounds simple, it probably will never exist, because the primary source of funds for an organization such as this would have to come from within the industry and when you take money, people start to form agendas based on where that money is coming from to keep it flowing. (Sounds oddly familiar somehow, doesn't it? **cough** Washington D.C. *cough cough** **cough Political Action Committees cough*** ).

It's going to continue to get worse. At least that's my opinion. With the plethora of manufacturers and importers putting completely untested and unproven long-term, products in the market and then consistently reducing the quality of those products to meet pricing demands instead of selling quality, it's a recipe for utter disaster. I think we're starting to see the first part of the tsunami of claims right now. I have dealers telling me every day they are throwing out all floating floors because of the volume of claims and going back to 100% glue down product. Not sure that's the best answer either, but it shows you how serious the problem really is. I do believe floating floors have their place, but you truly have to understand their limitations and resist the urge to oversell them to solve site related installation problems.

It's not just inspectors though. The incompetencies lie at every level of the industry. From the retail salespeople all the way through to the top execs at many of the major manufacturers in the industry. I love the saying "All hat, no cattle". I think it pretty much sums it up.

Every day I look more and more forward to being able to retire and focus on photography. Unfortunately, until this economy rights itself again that probably ain't happening any time soon.

Sorry for such a gloomy response, but the last 4 years' worth of changes to the industry have really demonstrated to me how dumb we can be as an industry and how too many people have used the Peter Principal to achieve their positions. People who should know better but don't even know what they don't know. It's honestly a bit of a S&^t Show right now and hard for me to watch it. The problems we have are fixable, but the problem is that the fix isn't profitable, so everyone is dragging their feet in implementing the fix. Fingers crossed that we learn to do better as a whole and that includes me!

 

[C.J.]

100% truth. I won’t say the industry is unfixable but I don’t see it coming around any time soon.