Health Conscious Laminate Flooring in Singapore?

Today, there are a lot of laminate flooring brands in the market. Laminate flooring is easy for mass production as it is highly demanded in the market due to its cost effectiveness compare to solid wooden flooring.

Home owners should be equipped with the knowledge about the health and safety aspects of laminate flooring as well.

Eventually, there will be an increase in quick profit-minded manufacturers who will produce laminate floors massively that are of lower quality and harmful to the human health in the long run.

Some laminate flooring has impregnated certain amount of melamine and other chemicals, which will produce harmful oxide emission such as formaldehyde that are harmful to children's health. According to an article written by David Bradley, science writer of sciencebase.com, he has quoted on Melamine, "Harmful if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Chronic exposure may cause cancer or reproductive damage. Eye, skin, respiratory irritant." Although there are still findings and investigation on the harmful effects of melamine, it is always best to avoid products or flooring that are high in melamine contents.

Large content of melamine in laminate flooring may help to stablilse the entire flooring but it will be a big risk to your children's health.

Then what are the harmful effect of formaldehyde?

Accoding to a UK health report, it has stated that formaldehyde can be affected when one breathes in its vapour or touch the liquid. It may cause harmful side effects such as eyes irritation, asthma attacks, skin rashes and persistent coughing. It has been shown that formaldehyde causes cancer on tested animals.

Hence the consumer needs to be assured that the laminate flooring that they are going to install in their homes must be tested for formaldehyde. "E1 Emission" is the ideal grade for laminate flooring as it will have very low formaldehyde emission. Anything that is above "E1 grade" will have high levels of formaldehyde. The consumer need to ask the laminate flooring vendor for proof of the test report.

Laminate flooring is a good way to furnish the home with little investment. However, the consumer needs to make sure that the laminate floor is safe and healthy to live with especially in the long run. At the end of the day, the consumer should consider investing in quality eco laminate flooring brands instead.