A Guide to Non-Toxic Laminate Flooring Brands

What is Laminate Flooring

Laminate flooring is a click together floor made of a fiberboard base and a printed image on top.

It is distinct from:

• Engineered wood, which has a real solid wood layer on top of a plywood or fiberboard substrate
• Luxury vinyl plank (LVP), which is a mix of PVC, limestone and plasticizers with a vinyl top layer
• and Hybrid floors, which have a PVC/limestone base and a real wood top layer

People often mix up laminate flooring and LVP. You will often hear LVP mistakingly referred to as laminate.

Laminate flooring does not contain any vinyl or solid wood layers and LVP does not contain any wood.

If you are interested in engineered wood, LVP, or hybrid floors, see my main flooring post.

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Chemical Composition of Laminate Floors – Are Laminate Floors Toxic?

HDF (High Density Fibreboard) Core:

• Softwood and hardwood fibers – around 75-85%
• Urea-formaldehyde, or melamine urea-formaldehyde as the binder – around 11-13%
• Paraffin – is added as water repellant – around 4% or less
• Ammonia – sometimes added as a formaldehyde scavenger (to reduce formaldehyde levels)
• Polystyrene is added in one brand (Duravana) to the core

(There used to be brands using MDF as the core, but now I only see HDF versions).

Top layer:

• Printed image that usually looks like wood
• A top coat typically made up of several coats of melamine-urethane impregnated paper with aluminum oxide, though some have a lacquer finish

Backing:

• Sometimes there is another melamine thin layer as the backing (and sides in one brand)
• An integrated foam underlayment made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE).
• Or a polystyrene foam underlayment
• (I don’t find that there is any offgassing in those underlayments)

What about Isocyanates and Cyanuric acid?

There are other websites that seem to just be copying and pasting information from each other, these blogs list isocyanates and cyanuric acid as components of laminate flooring.

There is no company, as far as I know, using MDI based glues which can offgas isocyanates.

Cyanuric acid may be found as an impurity of melamine but is not a component in melamine and I would not expect to find this leaching from floors. This is a chemical used in swimming pools and is harmful if swallowed. (Source)

Is Aluminum Oxide Toxic?

You would have to breathe in or ingest aluminum oxide for it to be toxic. I take an extreme approach personally to metal avoidance, but I am not worried about metals that are in solid form and won’t find their way into your body.

The finish on laminate (which usually includes aluminum oxide) is very durable and this is not a floor that you will be re-sanding (you can’t re-sand laminate). If the flooring is getting worn down that is time to replace it anyway. But that will take quite a while.

Waterproof Laminate

Some lines are “waterproof” because they have an extra component of wax on the tongue and groove parts. This was the first generation of waterproof laminate.

Since then there have been new developments:

1. One brand, Duravana from LL Floors, has polystyrene mixed in to the HDF core, this provides a greater level of waterproofing compared to wax on the tongue and groove. (This is a big innovation and improvement in the laminate industry).

2. AquaGuard from Floor and Decor coats the sides and back with melamine to protect the fiberboard from water.

3. Evoke Surge claims to be waterproof but they don’t disclose how this is accomplished. They say the binder in the fiber core is organic (so not plastic) and it is a little darker than the usual HDF, but I don’t know what’s added to make it more waterproof.

Neither type of waterproofing adds more offgassing.

Level of Formaldehyde Offgassing From Laminate

The only real chemical of concern here is formaldehyde, and all laminate flooring is made with formaldehyde.

Formaldehyde levels in laminate flooring are very low now. I have not seen any brands that are formaldehyde-free (or no added formaldehyde). Melamine-formaldehyde offgasses less formaldehyde than urea-formaldehyde (Source).

Many laminate brands are GreenGuard Gold certified. This means they offgas no more than 0.0073 ppm formaldehyde.

The outdoor level of formaldehyde in urban areas is 0.0015 – 0.047 ppm (source).

CARB 2 and TSCA Title VI are legal limits (they are both the same), O.11 ppm is allowed in MDF.

Laminate Flooring Brands that are Certified GreenGuard Gold Include:

• Swiss Krono USA
• Shaw Laminate
• Duravana from LL Floors looks like your typical laminate but the core seemed a little different to me so I asked the company about it. The core has polystyrene added to it (it also contains the usual wood fiber and melamine urea formaldehyde) which makes it more inherently waterproof than other brands. It does not have more offgassing than other brands. It’s my top pick for sure.
• Traffic Master
• AquaGuard Laminate from Floor and Decor
• Evoke Surge
• Pergo used to have Greenguard Gold certification before they were bought out by Mohawk. I don’t think the glues have likely changed, Mohawk simply doesn’t use Greenguard. Judging from the samples I received, they use the same glue as the others.

(If it meets GreenGuard Gold then it certainly exceeds E-0 limits of 0.07 ppm formaldehyde and E-1 limits, which are even higher).

Home Depot Brands of Laminate

In terms of Home Depot Brands: Home Decorators Collection seemed lower in offgassing straight out of the box, but Traffic Master offgassed quicker – to me it seemed to almost fully offgassed in about a month. Whereas, HDC did not seem to have made much progress at all in a month.

IKEA Tundra Laminate Flooring

IKEA’s laminate flooring is only available in Europe. IKEA is always at the forefront of the industry in terms of lowering emissions like formaldehyde in pressed wood products. While IKEA doesn’t use certifications like GreenGuard Gold, I’m certain it would meet or exceed those limits.

How Long Does it Take Laminate Flooring to Fully Offgas

Lynn Baker, an air pollution specialist with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) says “you’ll get a fairly large amount that off-gasses early on, and then it starts to become less over a period ranging from months to a couple of years depending on the amounts contained in the product” Source.

Years ago, high formaldehyde products like MDF made with urea-formaldehyde could take 7+ years to offgas but products with lower levels of formaldehyde and products made from phenol or melamine-formaldehyde offgas less and take much less time.

In my observation, laminate flooring is mostly offgassed in the first few months and is usually fully offgassed within a couple of years.

Other Chemicals Used in Installing Laminate Flooring

Adhesives

While you can glue down laminate flooring, it’s not done that often. There is no situation in which it would be necessary to glue down laminate flooring. I definitely would not glue this down.

Underlayment

I like the brands that include an attached polyethylene foam underlayment. But if you don’t start with one of those brands you can check out the options in my post on underlayment.

Other Flooring with an HDF Core

Other floorings with the same basic HDF core include Marmoleum Click (the top flooring sample in the stack in the above photo), and cork flooring with an HDF core – (second sample from the bottom, in the pic).

The product Hardboard is also HDF but the chemical composition is a little bit different. It’s got more wood fiber and less binder. The binder is listed as phenol-formaldehyde and not urea (source). This is used in furniture, often as the backing (like the backing of many dressers).

Hollow-core doors like Masonite doors also have an HDF skin. Pegboard is HDF as well.

Corinne Segura is a Building Biologist Practitioner with 8 years of experience helping others create healthy homes.

Sources:

• Wellmade Floors SDS
• Pharos CP for HDF
• SDS for HDF
• Home Depot
• Swiss Krono
• Science Direct.com

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