Question from singing tomato
Dear Debra,
After reading about the health concerns about the use of flame retardants in upholstery furniture we decided to buy new ones.
Since our bugdet is tight we have 4 options:
1. keeping the sofa and loveseat which we bought 3-4 years ago and are 100% from polyester. Do you think that because we bought the in 2006 the worst may be over and we may be ok?
2. Viesso, which you don’t mention on the list but are eco friendly. Their furniture is customizable and they use eco natural latex foam as a filling . I already contated them and they said they use no fire retardants, no formaldehyde.
3. Furnature, which you mention on the list and use natural rubber but are a lot more expensive than Viesso.
Debra’s Answer
Viesso is not on Debra’s List due to technical difficulties I’ve been having with adding new entries. But I am about to be able to add new links and Viesso is on my list to add.
1. Your existing sofa and loveseat has outgassed some and the worst is over. But it has not outgassed completely.
2. & 3. Natural latex and natural rubber are the same thing, both from the rubber tree. I will just say, though, that various chemicals are generally used to turn the natural latex into foam, and also all the latex foam I have ever seen has an odor I personally cannot tolerate, but others seem to do fine with it. So I strongly suggest getting a sample of the foam before committing to the furniture.
4. If all you are concerned about are the fire retardants, then this option would be fine. You don’t mention what the other materials are.
