Formaldehyde in Travel Trailers
I recently
saw a report on CBS evening news that many Katrina hurricane victims
are experiencing health problems because of formaldehyde exposures
in their FEMA-provided travel trailers. Why should travel trailers
be a problem? Wasn’t formaldehyde a problem that pretty much went
away over a decade ago?-Anon
Some travel trailers as well as
mobile homes are manufactured with formaldehyde-emitting wood
products such as particleboard, medium-density fiberboard and in
some cases hardwood plywood paneling. These materials are bonded
with urea-formaldehyde based adhesives. The adhesive is unstable
and breaks down to release formaldehyde as temperature and humidity
increases. In addition, if the urea-formaldehyde resin is not
manufactured with care, excess un-reacted formaldehyde can be
released into building environments in the early history of the
product (first 6-12 months).
High building formaldehyde levels
and occupant exposures that caused adverse health effects
(respiratory system irritation, headaches, fatigue, etc.) were
common in mobile and conventional stick-built house in the 70’s and
80’s. The problem pretty much went away by the early to mid 90’s as
a result of improvements in the manufacture of wood products such as
particleboard by American wood products producers such as Georgia
Pacific.
Formaldehyde as an indoor air
quality problem has resurfaced in the case of FEMA disaster relief
trailers and I suspect mobile or manufactured homes because of the
use of urea-formaldehyde-bonded, pressed wood products that are
imported from south Asia. These products are lower quality in
formaldehyde emissions than those produced by American
manufacturers. Unfortunately because of the higher demand for
particleboard that occurred as a result of hurricane disaster relief
needs and probable cheapness of Asian-produced products, it appears
that high formaldehyde-emitting materials are being used in travel
trailer or RV construction by some manufacturers and likely in
mobile homes. As a result many American families are again being
exposed to unhealthy levels of formaldehyde.
In the fall of 2006 the USEPA
conducted a study of formaldehyde levels in new travel trailers
purchased by FEMA . The study was conducted near Baton Rouge, LA on
96 travel trailers representing 8 manufacturers. The report was
issued by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)
which was set up under the Superfund law administered by the USEPA.
The study reported results of
formaldehyde air testing with the travel trailers closed and then
followed formaldehyde levels over time with half the units
ventilated by opening windows and the other half air-conditioned to
72oF with a small bathroom vent open.
Formaldehyde results were
unfortunately reported in metric units and not in the form familiar
to Americans (including American scientists), that is in parts per
million, ppm or parts per billion, ppb. In reading the report
concentrations can be converted to ppm by multiplying each of the
reported values by 0.00082 or to ppb by multiplying by 0.82.
As can be seen in the table of
formaldehyde values, there was a considerable variation in
formaldehyde levels based on the broad range between maximum and
minimum concentrations. The highest values were in the range of
1-2.5 ppm, levels that this author has only occasionally seen in the
“bad old formaldehyde” days. The variability seen in the ATSDR
report FormaldehydeReport
(2).pdf suggests that some manufacturer’s made very good travel
trailers relative to formaldehyde levels and others made very poor
(and dangerous) travel trailer units in respect to formaldehyde.
To be continued in future postings.
May 23, 2007
