Question from Blue Daisy
I am looking at the tarkett brand of fiber flooring. Does anyone have any info on this product or experience with it? It has been Floorscore certified does this mean it is safe? I could not find MSDS on the product. I am very mildly chemical sensitive. Mainly cleaners, perfumes, body products make me get hives etc. Plus have birds, so need to be careful. and plan and simple I like to be as green and non toxic as possible….
Any insight or help would be appreciated.
Thank You
B
Debra’s Answer
I went to the Tarkett website and found no information on what the Fiberfloor flooring is made from. So I called their Technical Resources department and was told that it’s sheet vinyl. Ordinary sheet vinyl.
But for some reason, a material that is usually quite toxic qualifies to be certified by FloorScore. A product bearing the FloorScore seal, developed by the Resilient Floor Covering Institute (RFCI), has been independently tested and ceritified to comply with the volatile organic compound emissions criteria of the California Section 01350 program. This in an independent third-party certification process that recognizes products that protect human health by creating good indoor air quality.
You asked if this means the floor is safe. The volatile organic compound emissions criteria of the California Section 01350 program can be found at http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/greenbuilding/Specs/Section01350/. The list of VOCs is quite long–you can see exactly what the chemicals are that are monitored and what their acceptable limits are. I put that in italics because the acceptable amount is not zero, this is the amount they allow. So your Tarkett floor has been tested and found that it contains less than these amounts of this whole list of toxic chemicals.
These amounts are considered by the State of California to be safe for schoolchildren.
Here’s what I think. There are products that need no certification because they are made with materials that don’t contain toxic chemicals. Like ceramic tile. Or by the time they are manufactured and applied and cured, they don’t outgas toxic chemicals. Sheet vinyl is toxic vinyl with toxic plasticizers added to make it flexible.
Ceramic tile doesn’t need to be certified. All of it is nontoxic. So then a certifying organization comes along and says, “we’re going to certify these products to be low-emission,” Not nontoxic, “low emission.”
