Well I have to say I'm absolutely disgusted and don't know how you can even bare to touch it or be in the same room as it for that matter. I seriously hope you wore gloves... and a mask... when you bought a copy of the Guardian. 😂😂👍
Just out of a matter of interest, sometimes my timber merchant has Trupan MDF in stock, made in Chile *I think*. Even for their cheapo standard version, it says "Complies with formaldehyde emission requirements for MDF in CPA-ECC-2011, ANSI 208.2 2016 and CCR 93120.2 (CARB Composite Wood ATCM Phase II)."... which is presumably beyond EU requirements. Honestly, the whole article is sensationalist bollocks but massively damaging to joinery businesses everywhere.
@@GosforthHandyman Yep, CARB phase 2 is a much more stringent set of requirements - basically their 'target value' is 0.05 mg/m3, whereas the UK HSE FAQ says that formaldehyde is present naturally at levels of ~0.03 mg/m3 🤷♂️
Aren't newspapers made from wood pulp? Have you tried surrounding your meter with copies of the Guardian? I'm sure the press would be interested in the results.
A freshly opened newspaper often gives off an odour from the ink that is used. This means that there are significant volatile organic compounds in the air in the vicinity of the newspaper. Is The Guardian toxic? 😉
I have to ask... But how could furniture made from MDF ever be considered "High-End"? Oak can be dug up from Peat Bogs after thousands of years. MDF won't last overnight in a good rainstorm.
Well there's the dimensional accuracy which will stay, not warp etc and for standard modern houses do you really want your interior to last thousands of years? Though yeah for really old housing it's bit different.
Fine art (paintings) are made from ground up bits of plant and rock. So I think it's also about what you do with the raw material, not just what it is.
Great video, two remarks to add: the HCOH sensor used is also sensitive towards other components eg Methanol. So basically worst case wood emits methanol and mdf emits formaldehyde.. and second: formaldehyde is proven not suspected carcinogenic and causes cancer in the upper regions of the nose. It also sensitizes causing asthma and skin problems. OSHA requires monitoring if twa is about 0.5ppm and the limit is 0.75ppm. So basically not allowed to work if >0.75ppm. All these technicalities mean that formaldehyde should be taken very seriously regardless of its source. In poor ventilated rooms formaldehyde may build up over time. Ideally homes have sufficient mechanical or natural ventilation.
The issue with MDF (and particle-board) is the adhesive used to bond it all together. The basis of such adhesives has often been "Formaldehyde" which has proven to irritate the eyes, nose and throat plus cause asthma. Formaldehyde is also a known carcinogen. After Hurricane Katrina when many were housed in quickly assembled caravans (or similar) made from particle-board there was a health concern about the fumes. The fumes of the adhesive will dissipate over time. It has always been good advice to employ breathing masks when machining MDF not only because of the fine dust of the wood (once saw-dust & wood chips) but also of the glue. When once employed manufacturing MDF this was always made with low Formaldehyde content for the Japanese market who were particularly fussy.
It sparked my attention when you recommended a cyanate in preference to urea-formaldehyde. It may not release any formaldehyde, but one has to balance that against the release of cyanates, which can be pretty nasty in very small quantities. I know they are a serious safety issue in foam factories, where I occasionally work. Now I know MDI is considered the safest of the cyanates, and I don't know the numbers, but if we are going to look at toxicity it would be well to have comparative figures on the relevant hazardous materials and not just assume that if it is free from urea and VOCs, it must be OK.
Peter, it would be interesting to see the results whilst you were machining MDF in the workshop, both for gas and dust. People should also be aware that many foamed products, such as insulation and carpet underlay, may release gases over time as they decompose. These items can be much more extensive in a domestic situation than timber or MDF.
Interesting story. I used to work in a factory making MDF and Particleboard, the formaldehyde is part of the resin used to bind the wood chips and fibres under heat and pressure.
Good, balanced approach to this type of problem in your video. In the US, there's been lots of hype to super insulate and super seal older houses as a way to help save energy costs. Fine, but. . . those houses were meant to breathe. Once you super seal you are containing many substances (chemical/mold/naturally occurring substances incl Radon) that could be unhealthy if concentrations get too high. So, one thing I wondered was whether the house in question had such super seal/insulation and was all closed up. Like your workshop over the weekend. In general the air outside a house is healthier than the air inside. I've never wanted a super insulated house. Never, that is, until the recent "Polar Vortex" event in my region. Everything got strangely cold even with the furnace running full blast. Too bad that newspapers, most of which are dying, have become less and less likely to research what they print, even the best ones.
Thanks! And great point about the ‘super-sealed’ aspect; hadn’t thought of that. I know the area well and the type of houses are all old, but heavily ‘modernised’ with double-glazing, mega-insulation etc... 👍👍
K.B. Woodworker I have a super insulated house that stays comfortable even when the heating is off. It also has a mechanical air circulation system that takes the air from inside and puts it outside and takes fresh air inside. I have had several air monitor reports done to make sure levels are within acceptable levels. I have training in chemical pathology so I can use the air reports and make sense of them. The problem is that the majority of people that make comments or write about these issues are very ignorant and are prone to make such ignorance part of their propeganda.
@@bighands69 Sounds like yours was done right. I'm well aware that people can have such a mechanical air circulation system installed. But that's usually not the case. Many people here in the U.S. just do it piecemeal. There's lots of PR about sealing the house here, but I can't remember any PR about a mechanical air circ. system. I've known people who have had the various remedies done, but nary a one who had the air circ done. Having professionals do the whole job at once is beyond the budget of most average people. Most people don't have your training, and not a clue about the air quality problem. BTW, not propaganda, just concern about what I see happening. I'm not against someone doing this if they can find the budget for it, keeping an eye on the air quality problem.
Interesting, in my country (China),some medias and commercial organizations sell “formaldehyde phobia” to the public and they succeed. Now when people choosing furnitures or materials for interior finish they always want to choose formaldehyde free products which is ridiculously impossible. And they obsess with anti-formaldehyde products such as some kind of spray or something like that.
So MDF is made of wood, which contains formaldehyde, all wood contains it and emits it over time. So replacing MDF with solid wood will not solve the issue. It's also possible that the binding of the wood fibres in MDF actually reduces the emission rate which is why the rate rose in Peter's experiment with the wood. The simple fact is we are all surrounded by things that cause cancer and if you live long enough you will more likely than not develop a form of cancer. You will probably never know the cause.
Cancer is more to do with a persons own genetics than the environment they live in. My Grandfather lived until he was 90 and smoked all his life. I am sure that if I smoked it would cause major problems very quickly.
bighands69 alas not really correct, at least according to my oncologist and the clinical geneticist I saw a few weeks ago... There are some inherited predispositions to certain cancers but not as many as you'd think...
Diet is the biggest risk factor for cancer. Diet has surpased smoking as a risk factor. Processed meat is classified as a class 1 carcinogen like Asbestos. Risk factors for cancer increase as the percentage of meat and dairy exceed 10 percent of calories. The suspect is not only contaminates but the animal protein and fat themselves. That s just cancer, there are dozens of other complications too. Its well documented and has been known for at least 100 years but is rarely talked about for fear of upsetting the meat and dairy industry.
Anthony Romano alas no it’s not. Age is by far the greatest risk factor. As Macmillan will tell you. Yes diet can have an effect but being overweight is a higher factor than meat. The anti meat brigade are trying to drum up support by false propaganda and ignoring the facts.
As you suspect, the Guardian article was almost certainly womping on about VOCs from paint. The real issue with working with MDF is that cutting it up makes sub-micron fibril dust -typically much finer than real wood, save processed oak- and that escapes a lot of collection and gets breathed in. Lungs are awful at moving out fibres. So now you've got carcinogenic-emitting fibres stuck in your lungs. I'm not going to suggest that MDF is Asbestos 2.0 but it's not worth the risk of not using suitable PPE. That five minutes a day is worth a lower risk of dying from mesothelioma.
@@anthonyromano8565 Nonsense. Mesothelioma can and does occur anywhere there is a mesothelial layer (most of the body). Asbestos is not the only cause. Even in the lungs.
@@anthonyromano8565 Only 80% of mesothelioma is caused by asbestos these days. Again, were talking about a cancer of a tissue. Any carcinogen can cause it. Only asbestos can cause asbestosis. Maybe that's what you're thinking of.
Like you, I work with Medite MDF a fair bit. My concern has never been with the Formaldehyde content but with the dust. I know of two 'wood' workers who have suffered dust trigger cancers: one fatal, the other dealt with before it was too late but still had life changing effects. I strongly recommend serious dust control such as you have shown in previous videos. Thought I was pretty good at it but today have been having a workshop clean up and found nasty collections of dust in dark little corners. Maybe I'm not as clean as I thought I was and need to think again.
Thanks Graham. I agree entirely; whatever we think of the Guardian story, there's no harm in being shaken up a little to improve dust collection and monitoring. If it hadn't been for this story, I would never had considered a formaldehyde or TVOC meter 👍
Good video. Well balanced. There are a couple of things I haven't seen mentioned in the article and you might consider to look at later. 1) Do they air out the room/home/apartment regularly or do they keep it closed up. If they keep it closed up it would be closer to your workshop was when you checked it as you first came in. 2) Were all the materials new MDF or wood? The paint had to be new. If the MDF and wood give off the formaldehyde gas, it should lessen over time. You might want to compare some old well aged wood vs new wood and likewise some new MDF vs some you've had lying around for a year or so to see if the air quality is affected by time. The same should go for paint as well. Thanks again for a good video.
I fitted some MDF skirting boards last year and they required a considerable amount of sanding. I must say, I was wary at the time about the dust given off and clearly any toxic fumes would have been many many times higher than one might expect when the skirting boards had been fitted and painted over. It would be interesting to know just how high the levels were during such work.
This is quite informative. Thank you for pointing out this article. I probably wouldn't normally notice it - even though I'm pro natural wood and plywood and anti all other kinds of artificial/engineered wood. Having said that, my home is full of MDF and particleboard furniture - there's probably the odd piece of real wood furniture but that's just it. I'd be careful with any air quality monitoring device if used for professional purposes. I'd make doubly sure it's been calibrated and approved by a government approved laboratory. The reason I mention this is that it's all well and good reading the display readings and expecting to be in safe/unsafe air quality environment based on them, but what is this device actually measuring? and what do these readings mean exactly? How must the measurements be done, in what conditions etc.? For the formaldehyde reading, what is being measured is quite unambiguous, so the only question is whether the device is calibrated and used correctly. For VOC readings, I'd want a clear definition of what the device measures, from its spec sheet, and a confirmation from a laboratory. As far as the reported case is concerned, it's hard to make any definite conclusions from the article. It's simply impossible to make an educated guess and isolate the possible irritant from the information given. It's probably nearly impossible to replicate the conditions now. Was it the MDF used? Was it the paint and solvents used or other substances such as glues, putties etc.? Could it be something unrelated to the furniture installed by the company mentioned? Who knows - it's impossible to draw a conclusion. The only thing that must be certain is this: all modern homes should be aerated every day (assuming there's no valid reason not to so, such as an industrial accident or forest fire). The reason is, modern homes are constructed with all sorts of man-made materials and most of them, being composites containing organic compounds, emit all kinds of VOCs. Besides, there is the normal build-up of VOCs, other gases and dust that are a direct by-product of our normal daily home activities - not to mention germs etc.
I have very sensitive eyes. And yes, (unpainted) MDF boards give me itchy eyes. I have the same issue with chipboard so I only get solid wood furniture.
That is probably to do with the resin used as binder, some resins give me a similar reaction. Do you get the same problem with the moisture resistant type, they use different binder resin for that.
@@paulround8501 the resin could indeed be the culprit. I’m avoiding all non solid wood at the moment, so I don’t know what type of resin that might be the cause.
That's the problem with journalism these days. Failure to research. The job appears to start with "what angle do we want to take on this?" and then fill paragraphs to suit.
In the 70s, GF and I married, had a house built, and had a family, in Canberra. Canberra gets a little chilly, and we were on bottled gas. A bottle lasted, I think, a week. There were some businesses offering to insulate homes, by pumping some foam stuff into the walls. we had one around, he did his thing, and coincidentally, we went on holiday to estern Australia for a few months. That might be when we went to Coral Bay for a couple of weeks. We returned home, and found our house much warmer, and our gas consumption dropped to about one bottle a year.. The gas supplier thought we must have switched to electricity. Time passed, I got a jb in Melbourn and we moved on, in due course we sold the house. Then there was some fuss and bother about foam insulation and formaldehyde and the fumes irritating people's throats and lungs, and words about cancer. We had no problems, perhaps leaving the house vacant cleared any fumes, perhaps we were more tolerant than most, perhaps we were just lucky, perhaps ou supplier used a better product.
Thanks for the details Peter, a great level headed review of the Formaldehyde situation. I know that you tested the pine with the meter but I would have liked to have seen a similar test with MDF. Maybe there's a Test Tuesday in there somewhere, comparing various MDF types!
I don't know, Peter's whole workshop is filled with MDF, it's all over the place. I suspect the meter would have been going crazy if there was a real problem with MDF.
When I was a teenager, Dad had some sheep. Somehow, they got footrot, and the farm was quarantined. Dad had two choices. Killing and burning didn't appeal, so we trimmed their hooves and bathed them regularly in a formaldehyde solution, The sheep recovered, quarantine was lifted.
Modern homes are tightly sealed, and most people won't be opening the doors and windows periodically in the middle of winter (or worse, summer in warmer climates). This allows accumulation; however, the culprits are probably the paint, as you say. I played around with an air quality meter at my last home and was amazed at how high the numbers went when the meter was placed near the walls. The radiant heat from the exterior during summer seemed to make things 10 times worse. This was in an older apartment that had clearly been painted multiple times with what I suspect was economy paint - the only thing that could've made it worse would have been modern, tightly-sealed construction.
Log cabins also have lots of gaps and voids in the structure that facilitates air exchange. The chimney also means a constant air exchange. Modern houses are built to be as airtight as possible so any VOCs are trapped inside.
First of all, the quality of MDF can vary greatly depending on the type of adhesive used during manufacturing. I am very sensitive to formaldehyde, and I can tell if it’s bad when I wake up 2 am in the middle of the night with a bad throat. That’s exactly what happened to me last night, the day I installed a new glass display stand in my bedroom. I woke up coughing and realized the room smelled really bad. I attempted to sniff out the source of the odor, and it turned out that the manufacturer used cheap unsealed MDF underneath the base of the glass stand and it was reeking of adhesive chemical fumes. Do not take formaldehyde emitting MDF lightly. I’m about to throw this thing out of my house. Secondly, do not trust those cheapo air quality checkers made from China. They react to pretty much any type of gas. Try eating an orange and breathe into the device. I will bet the formaldehyde sensor will go off; oranges don’t have formaldehyde. There’s a good reason why actual air quality tests are so expensive.
In the USA we see a lot of Chinese MDF and (at one time) some very toxic drywall (paper faced gypsum sheet, not sure what it might be called in UK). The drywall had high bisulfates and when damp the bisulfates reacted, creating sulfamic acid. It was recalled, and in many cases, removed from new homes.
in our quest for warmer homes and as a result sealing them, it's little wonder we get a build up of fumes etc with little ventilation. Just to add I used to work in a factory making kids play furniture, basically scaled down furniture, made from MDF, for a few years and was never really aware of this issue, and yet I am still on this planet.
A few years ago I painted our living room with Crown emulsion and after a few months there was a smell of gas, we called out the gas board and there was no leak and we found that the smell was coming from the paint on the walls. The smell eventually disappeared a few months later. Another interesting video Peter 👍🥃🏴
One might wonder what how the levels of freshly cut wood compares to freshly cut mdf, instead of comparing it to the minimum standard? As a sensitive asthmatic I have often been unable to tolerate certain furniture assemblies, due to excessive off-gassing, they usually contained some sort of mdf or osb, along with other furniture products, ike rubber bladders, (i.e. air mattress w/mdf mattress support) processed leather, various finishing compounds. Never new exactly what specific caused my respritory distress, but solid wood products didn't seem to bother me.
Hey Peter! You have gotten me interested in MR-MDF. Finding this stuff in the USA is like finding a unicorn at the end of a rainbow. I do have a few questions: 1) Are you familiar with "Fire resistant MDF" vis a vis MR MDF? Also Axeminster has a MFT made out of HDF (High density fiberboard). It seems as if HDF. I was curious about its properties vis a vis MDF as well. Please keep up all the good work on your channel!
Hi Mark. Yes, Flame Retardant MDF is a pretty standard product, generally available in 30 and 60 minute classifications (FD30/FD60). It's generally dyed with a pink tinge vs green with MR; dyed are for easy visual identification, they don't affect the performance of the board. Flame retardancy is generally a requirement in public spaces, so most manufacturers will offer a board that complies; there's information on the Medite FR boards here - mdfosb.com/en/products/medite-mdf/flame-retardant-mdf And HDF is a standard board, but used in more specialist applications where you need a denser board; the downside is weight, with HDF coming in at 50-100% more then MDF, it's not a board I've ever had to use. HTH P
You are spot on about the TVOC from the paint being the culprit! Paint is loaded with volatile organic compounds that off-gas while the paint is drying. To be fair, in toxicology you can have what is called a synergistic effect where having two compounds mix is much much stronger than one alone (it's actually super common), think of that first drag on a cigarette if you haven't smoked in awhile after a few good stiff drinks and you'll get the idea. Formaldehyde and a compound that is called DMF(dimethylformamide) is very similar to formaldehyde and is used in some paint formulations. If the couple had a lot of both in the room my guess is they would have headaches like mad, nausea and vomiting if it's real bad. That's all signs of getting a weak toxic dose, cancer comes later :)
Thanks! Yes, AC paints in particular are known for off-gassing formaldehyde during the curing phase. Of course, we don’t know what paints were used in this case - or at least, nobody’s saying. 🤷♂️👍
Thanks for this Peter. Always been vaguely aware of the supposed dangers in working with MDF but you've now brought me up to speed. Excellent presentation, put into lay person terms with some sensible and practical conclusions and good reference documents too. Thanks again 👍
Thanks Peter for a well presented article that will dispel the miths surrounding MDF and Formaldehyde. I do feel for the couple in the article though. I unfortunately caught a mouthful of MDF dust which stuck in my throat. The next day I developed a very nasty cough which has persisted now for 18 months, accompanied by thick buttons of glue like phlegm. The NHS have tried all sorts of treatment to no avail, fortunately it is not cancerous or affected my lungs, just bloody annoying and inconvenient !!
Sorry to hear that John, and as I hope it's clear fro the video, I'm not making light of the dangers of dust while woodworking, as all wood dust is hazardous. But I do feel the newspaper article is pointing the finger at the wrong guy when it comes to formaldehyde, and in particular fumes from a fitted furniture installation. 👍
@@10MinuteWorkshop Not at all Peter It is a very well balanced presentation. I only gave a factual account of my recent experience which is as I said mainly inconvenient rather than serious. I stopped buying the Guardian & other papers over 40 years ago after they made fauls allegations about my family.
I've manufactured mdf kitchen and bedroom doors for 16years now in one of the UK's largest suppliers, I have never noticed any toxic fumes nor has the 120 other people the work in the factory.... I would suggest wearing a mask when working with it.... other than that 100% safe....
Surely the carpenter cutting the MDF up is at the highest risk of breathing in something bad? Once something is built and sealed in paint (depending on the paint), is the MDF even an issue? Perhaps there just need to be guidelines to open the windows for a 10 minutes after fitting the furniture?
Hey Peter. I wish I would have known that MR MDFs like Medite, Extira, and Medex are not only moisture resistant, but they are "super refined". Because the SR aspect is crucial for a quality product in my opinion. Now that I know this, I absolutely love using these products and will use them every chance I get from now on.
Try Lakeland paints at Heysham or Lancaster for Ecologically friendly paints. In the Uk always ask for MSD sheets for any paint or adhesives before buying to ensure you will not buy somthing you may find harmful to you.
I used a lot of mdf 20 years ago when I came to Canada, I developed a rash on the back of my head that stayed around for quite a while. I got away from using mdf on the whole. The rash is gone along with most of my hair! 😂 Seriously it is a versatile product , but the weight of it used in cabinets is so great compared to plywood. I prefer birch ply but I know it's twice the price and you can't build doors out of it. Another great video Peter. Happy New Year from 🇨🇦
I went to a warehouse where they were storing mdf and chipboard sheets. I couldn't stand their even for a second. There was something in the air that caused my eyes to burn. I have visited other mdf storage places and have found similar eye burning sensation.
Hi Peter thank you for your responce we did paint the MDF with MDF primer then eggshell paint but all waterbased. I have heard that if you use zinnerbin to prim it then their would be no smell from the MDF. But I'm thinking if I would have to sand back to re paint. I might be better of getting the safer MDF but I know its going to be awkward removing some of the shelfs that have been glued inside the fitted wardrobe. But I'm so put off by the formaldehyde smell. I think we have no choice but to buy the safer MDF and start again.
Just happened across this video..!! and although very informative it did make me smile… we sit around fire pits, barbecue’s wood stoves, sit in steaming hot saunas loving the fresh smell of whatever toasted wood is in there , we have radioactive granite worktops and we smear some fairly unsavoury chemicals on our bodies to keep the U.V. Rays at bay …?? I mean “ REALLY” I do my best to mitigate dust when working and I’m an avid fan of P.P.E. But maybe we should worry more about the tiny pieces of tungsten carbide flying around the workshop and the nano meter size particles of wood created when we burn through a tough cut.!!! OR NOT….!!!! Great video as usual….😁
Increased airtightness is making indoor air quality a big issue, so this is really interesting, thank you. Please can you clarify what the levels were when you first returned to the workshop after the weekend?
Yes, I'm sure you're right. I wasn't recording when I first arrived, but it was around 0.18 for HCHO and 2.4 for TVOC. These fell very quickly when the door was opened. 👍
A bit of an eye opener when Natural wood tips the scale... Teaching granny here. Newspapers write stories to sell papers. I pick and choose what I read and the news I watch. Need I say more??
Good morning Peter, it is great idea to underscore problem of toxicity of materials. Formaldehyd is volative solvent which is included in glues nad resin to stabilize them and evaporate during "after use"process. It is kind of alcohol. What will happend when You add to 96% alkohol boiling water and you will do this in small closed room ? As you show at technical card, it is almost everywhere, but question is how much? I did not read this articele, I am guesing the tone of this article is like almost everything in newspaper(current newspappers should became just wood pulp again asap). We call it ecoterroism in my country. There are trees that includes in their tissue more dangerous metals that we can imagine like lead, chromium, Mn, etc. I am pretty neutral and trying to be rational when using post wood product. I like your vlog. Take care.
I guess doing lines of MDF dust and shots of paint thinner are gone now huh,i agree with you as somebody may have tried to cut corners using an industrial sealer with high HVCs ,OACs and ABCs (LOL),that being a work site has plenty of time to dry and clear of these things but i think if its a Reno,well you wont just have it in the built in cabinets ,it can be in the trim,flooring (MFG),doors ,finishes and i think we know the benefits of water based products , i dont know about the UK but here in North America there a little more costly then the old alternatives ,and i have done the new plastic flooring (water resistant and Quote" can be taken up cleaned and but back down (never happen people break the tabs off to often ,but you want a smell try cutting that to fit ,interesting to see how you make out with the news paper ,the days of good reporting are gone they lack integrity
Haha, certainly at my age, Syd, lol! There's lots more to this story than has been reported, I'm sure, but we only have what's been reported, so far. 🤷♂️👍
@@10MinuteWorkshop sent you a pick of my frosty front yard Peter on instagram new at the phone photos and messages on instagram ...lol no body will be with a warm drink today
Sorry for three comments on a 4 year old post but there it is. One last thought, long before MDF, and long before eye and mouth protection were a thing, in the woodworking industry there was nasal cancer and "brown lung" caused by inhaling wood dust. I am not a fan of MDF for other reasons, I love wood grain, and MDF is so heavy, but it is no more toxic or dangerous than any other woodworking material.
Hey Peter great vid. I recently finished making audio absorbers for my home studio and the front panels are made of MDF. 16 of them. They cover most the wall in the room.The front and the sides were painted with waterbased paint. 2 coats. There are small holes we made across the panels so we get better sound absorption. Those were not painted. Too many of them and hard to get the paint in there :D Anyhow now that the project is finished the whole room smells funny. Like new furniture. Wood and glue kinda smell. I am worried it might be the MDF offgassing, no? I am keeping the windows open all the time but all this "going down the formaldehyde internet rabbit-hole"gave me a scare. Maybe I should get rid of the MDF panels altogether??? I remember in 2011 I bought an IKEA workdesk and had to keep the windows fully open for two weeks for the smell to evaporate. What do you think?
Was it regular or MR MDF? And was it from a known manufacturer (Medite, Caber, Kronospan, Finsa) or something cheap & cheerful from a DIY shed? If it's reglar MDF from an uncertain source, then it's possible that it's could be of-gassing, but virtually every board manufactured within the EU has been essentially formaldehyde free for a long, long time. What type of paint was it - water-based or oil-based?
@@10MinuteWorkshop It's from a certified dealer. I called they said the do not mess around with this stuff. It's all strict EU regulations. We used acrylic water based colour.
Interesting topic Peter. I often hear that just about anything "new" is off-gassing chemicals. This also reminds me of the "Chinese dry wall formaldehyde scare of the 1990s. I think a big issue is what to do with all the information. Hmmm, my new router table is a giant slab of...Phenolic. By the way, did you know that bananas are somewhat radioactive? OK I'm off to find some eyedrops.
. My Dad was a carpenter for 40 years, when MDF was introduced to the UK he was advised to always cut it outside or wear a mask if cutting it inside. I read MDF is banned in Canada, France and China due to the levels of formaldehyde gas.
Do some more reading. MDF hasn’t been banned anywhere, and the majority of MDF has been essentially formaldehyde free for donkeys years. 40 years ago? Sure, just like there was formaldehyde in shampoo and fabric conditioner. Now, not so much. 🤷♂️👍
@@10MinuteWorkshop Excellent point. Glad I found your channel, it's been wonderful viewing for the past few weeks. I respect how you're not brand obsessed when it comes to tools, concentrating more on the technique/productive side of woodworking. Keep up the amazing work with the channel Peter.
A couple of comments regarding Formaldehyde. We are in Australia. Have previously bought MDF from Bunnings and found it is at high rate of Formaldehyde. Once we found the MDF is rated with it, decided never to use MDF. There are some lower rated Formaldehyde for some MDF here by suppliers, but not easy to buy it. Similar for plyboards also here. Yes, Formaldehyde is in normal timbers. Your method of running multiple slots of saws through the normal timbers would allow a large of Formaldehyde to be released into to the air. Normal timbers would not release as much as that without those many saw slots in it. If you had similar MDF and run the saws in it like that, it would also release more Formaldehyde. Would be better to supply the same size of timbers and MDF and do measures for Formaldehyde, showing the any differences of health from either of them.
Here in the UK all boards are manufactured to strict standards - I mentioned this in the video. All the MDF I use is, as stated in the video, MR MDF that meets or exceeds the most stringent CARB p2 standards. I didn’t have a ‘method for running multiple slots through timber’ I used what I had - these cuts were made over a week before this video, and it wasn’t a ‘test’ - MDF has been tested to death - it was to show how easily the WHO and CARB standards could be exceeded - 20 minutes in this instance. More to come on this story - video out on Friday. 👍👍
@@10MinuteWorkshop Fair enough. Your video is available to the whole world, not just to the UK or Europe. Just test normal timbers and MDF. Having many slots in timbers will let out more Formaldehyde. That is a poor way of talking about formaldehyde between timber and MDF.
Yes, I'm fortunate to have an International audience. I just watched the 13-minute video again, and I mention UK, EU, European standards, etc.. etc.. nine times. Nine times in 13 minutes. Seriously, I couldn't be any clearer about where I am and the standards that I'm discussing. I think you're missing the point completely about the natural timber section of the video; this wasn't a 'test' of any material, it was to show that the standards set by WHO and CARBp2 could be easily exceeded by boards that most folk think of as natural, sustainable and ecologically sound. That's it 🤷♂️
Hello Mr. Peter. I was wondering if you've heard of a new material called NFC (Natural Fibre Composite). There's no wood used in this material, but looks very similar to wood and does feel a lot like wood. Infact, it can even be bent like natural wood by heating, which cannot be done by other composite materials like WPC (Wood Plastic Composite). It would be great if you could review this new material if you have access to it. As always, love your videos.👍
This reminds me of the time I used Crown 'Breath Easy' paint because I have asthma and have difficulty breathing with some paints. Even a couple days after the paint had dried I was having trouble sleeping and had really bad headaches, but only in the room that we used the Breath Easy paint. In the rooms with the generic cheap paint I was fine. Since then I've just been using regular paint and haven't had an issue! After reading the article (with two adblocks running just in case lol), I'm left wondering what the actual story is, surely if the MDF was sealed and painted, then the emissions from it would be next to nothing, so it would have to be the paint. But if I've learned anything, it's don't believe anything in newspapers, doesn't matter if they align with your political views or not, especially when the first thing in the article is a photo of the couple with their 'compo face' on 😂
What were the ambient levels e.g. monitor in the centre of the room without being closely surrounded by materials? Is this another scare story by the newspapers? No more bacon, alcohol and now wood!
Toluene Di-Isocyanate was the basic raw material traded which used to be used in foam rubber. You may remember this product accounted for over 50% of deaths in house fires in the UK. It is now banned in the UK, not sure if Northern Ireland have instituted this yet. This is FAR too near the PMDI used in high quality MDF. I wouldn't contemplate using this stuff for ANY articles inside a home, in case of fire, when the Diisocyanate would decompose into Cyanide gas.
I would guess that the California standards were based on a volume of air greater than the space around your meter. If the wood was left to gas into your workshop. the concentration of chemicals would be greatly diluted. You do make a great point in that even benign wood will give off those gases. An interesting experiment would be to repeat the test with a more controlled volume of air and include some other materials such as MDF and MR MDF. Thanks for the interesting video.
Just when people think they have got it clear in their mind you confuse them with facts and logic!! Good video Peter, nothing like a clear demonstration to show that sometimes people worry too much. As far as I know, people have lived in forests for thousands of years with no ill effect.
Thanks for the interesting article - very thought provoking. Unfortunately there is little doubt that working with MDF on a regular basis will dramatically increase the chance of a number of cancers and other respiratory problems. Formaldehyde is only a part of this risk. The worst issue,by far, is dust ingestion. Airbourne release of the organic content when storing is never going to be a problem, relatively speaking. This becomes so much worse when using boards of dubious (cheap) manufacture. The only answer is good respiratory protection and then general air filtration.
Great little workshop, Couple of points I think are important a, Your demo of natural wood created a false positive as the boxing causes reduced natural airflow circulation... The other thing is formaldehyde whilst is natural to all organic matter its also "permanently volatile" tthus other chemicals especially paints and finishes (and you rightly point out its most likly this that was the issue in the article) Finally even some big MDF suppliers are on occasion unsure of their source product with multinational companies "rebranding" thier purchases as their own thus you can innodvertantly end up with some asian or other MDF with many undesirable chemicals involved in the glue process. Once again though Pete a Great Job!
Nice topic, but however, I think quite a few persons get misled a bit. For your test: Your have a lot of wood for a pretty small air-volume. So calling it "a little bit of natural wood" is a bit unfair :-D. Did you try the same setup with MDF? It could be interesting to see a relation between materials and also what happens if you paint (seal) it which would be a bit more the real life situation. However, I am more interested in your Particle Matter monitor. Have you observed that one while you are working (expecially sanding or cutting wood)? I am always amazed what you can squeeze out of your small and occupied workspace (not having a workshop at all ;-). So that whould be really interesing to see how good dust extraction acutally works after a long day in the workshop.
There are a lot of difficult words to pronounce in this video and you have done well to nail them. I think as a professional jointer you have a good reason to worry about the negative article which could have brought to the business as well as your own health. I probably won’t be bother to read that article myself but as far as I understand after your short experiment, the trick to maintain a low level of exposure is simple good ventilation. For me, I am more concern what the cigarettes do to me than the MDF !
I came across a primer which CLAIMED to contain all the harmful 'exhalations' from MDF - can't remember who made it but it was VERY expensive. I wonder what your meter would read if you kept it in a new car - the interior 'out-gasses' from the plastics, fabric and carpet (new-car smell) for a long time. I've heard that the lovely smell of fresh-cut pine is actually quite dangerous for you on continued exposure ( high VOCs ? ) And what about finishing with Danish / Tung oil... Oh God, all the things I like are SO hazardous !
Very interesting video. Thanks for sharing. I'll follow the links and read the article and the reports. What I understood from other publications on the emission of non-moisture-resistant MDF (so the MDF with formaldehyde in it) is, that when you paint that MDF, the emission of MDF lowers (or even stops, I do not remember) because the formaldehyde cannot go through the layers of paint, or much slower. That makes sense, in a way. On the other hand, how long (months years) can an MDF board emit formaldehyde? I mean when there is an XXX amount of formaldehyde in it, and the emission is X per day, it should stop after 111 days (when X is for example from 2 to 9) Or not?
Yes, I don't know how long a board - or a piece of solid timber - can emit formaldehyde, but the levels are very low, compared with say, dried Shiitake mushrooms, or green onions and pears 🤷♂️
Fantastic video Peter, great knowledge and potential warning to all the carpenters out there. I wonder if you will get any response from the parties involved.
I remember particle board, that outgassed so much formaldehyde that I got migraines just walking into a store that had it. MDF is nothing in comparison.
A good reason to make sure you have product liability insurance as well as public liability insurance. But a few quid spend on an air quality metre could be a a good investment so long as you record the results with customer verification
We live in a world where we get our food grown in pesticides, cook it in Teflon pans on gas ranges and store it in MDF cabinets. We're bombarded all the time and I don't see big companies changing their products any time soon
well timed Peter, I just had this piece show up on my news feed and immediately thought of you. I hope my customers recognise the G (and most other newspapers) as the Merchants of Chaos that they are. Meanwhile I can be armed with some truth thanks in no small part to your research. Can't thank you enough Peter.
I am confused by this. I understand cutting, leaving it bare, sanding it down will release the toxins. However if you seal this and paint it then will it still release the toxins? When you seal it then surely it will keep in all the dust and toxins as they remain compact behind the paint; unless dented or cut again or dropped.
I understand the UN, WHO, California and the EU will be issuing a joint paper to advising that prolonged exposure to life may be hazardous and can result in death. I'm not sure what the threshold PPM is.
Is there not a sealer available for the really worried folks out there. What levels are your workshop when you're actually cutting the stuff....and does the "M" class dust extractor do its job in removing these very small ppm units....be interesting to stick your little monitor on the output of the dust extractor.
Let's say that, that high end firm, painted the mdf with a catalyzed varnish. The client pushed to have it done sooner than later. The painted product gassed off in the home. The clients eyes watered and burned. Breathing was uncomfortable and now their foggy headed. Mdf is hazardous only while cutting. So if the mdf is sealed by paint how could it be hazardous? So you'll have to test different finishes and measure the VOC levels.
Yep, 'best guess' by all in the business is that it's the e.g. acid cat paint that was the actual issue. I did wonder if there was a 'late in the day' colour change, so paint didn't have time to fully gas off before the install. Gas released by MDF is tiny, assuming branded boards were used, and as you say, the paint seals it in anyway. But we don't really know; all we have is what's been reported. 🤷♂️👍
Great video. I am also suspect as to the relative risk of these various compounds compared to our typical real-world exposure. I wonder how the MDF numbers were calculated... you may wish to try the same test you did with the natural wood using MDF, because you are comparing the air quality of a whole room (diluted) to a farm more enclosed space (less diluted) to a lab calculation (for which we do not know at what distance, space or dilution they ran their ppm for). A quick follow-up vid with the same test side by side (one after the other) with wood vs MDF (and maybe other materials?) might be interesting to see.
Thanks! It wasn't really a test as such with the redwood, more to show how readily the 'acceptable levels' of HCHO could be exceeded by a material (timber) that most people think as environmentally friendly and sustainable. 👍🤷♂️
I'm glad I came across this video as I'm in a dilema. We had a loft conversion done early this year and the builders made a built in wardrobe for us from MDF. We left it for two months as we noticed the off gassing smell that is formaldehyde. But the smell never seemed to go. So we painted over it with MDF primer then eggshell 2 coats of each. It was fine during the summer months. But now it has started smelling again of formaldehyde. Now we don't know what to do our options are perhaps to sand the paint off this will cause obviously more exposure to the wood dust or we will have to get the lot stripped out. Not sure what we would replace it with. Any help would be much appreciated.
Hi Georgina. The thrust of this video really is to show that - provided a reputable brand of MDF is used - then any off-gassing is almost certainly from the painting process, and not from the MDF. While formaldehyde is used as a binder in some MDF manufacture, the process of painting it seals this in, so there shouldn’t be any off-gassing, unless cut edges are left exposed somewhere. Painted MDF is a staple of the fitted furniture industry, and thousands of sheets of the product fitted every week across the country, without any issue. Some people are especially sensitive to chemical odours, of course, and it could be the case that you and your wardrobes aren’t compatible; it’s certainly unusual though, for an odour to go away, then return, and as you say sanding the paint off would likely make the problem worse, if your wardrobes were built from an off-brand MDF. It’s a tough one to deal with, and I’m afraid I don’t have a definitive answer for you, I’m sorry.
@@10MinuteWorkshop Hi Peter thank you for your responce we did paint the MDF with MDF primer then eggshell paint but all waterbased. I have heard that if you use zinnerbin to prim it then their would be no smell from the MDF. But I'm thinking if I would have to sand back to re paint. I might be better of getting the safer MDF but I know its going to be awkward removing some of the shelfs that have been glued inside the fitted wardrobe. But I'm so put off by the formaldehyde smell. I think we have no choice but to buy the safer MDF and start again.
Hi Peter, I would like my carpenter to buy Medite MDF like you recommended but I have now ground out that there is Medite clear MDF that is formaldehyde free but not available in many places. Is this the one you recommend or is any Medite MDF bound sufficient?
Don’t be nervous. The ‘toxic’ thing is massively overstated by this newspaper article - it was almost certainly the paint that was the problem. There’s more to come on this story. 👍👍
Why use MDF for shelves? It has no strength and sags while you look at it. Real wood please, no more expensive and lasts forever. It looks better with age unlike MDF which turns to shite and ends up as landfill.
@@amraceway well I've had some mdf shelves for about 10 years now that are fine. So long as no moisture get to them. Think I'd struggle to find real wood for the same price I paid for the mdf (around a tenner)
I am no style guru but why fill your house with crap looking furniture? Recycled wood is cheaper and I defy anyone to build an MDF shelf that will support heavy books.
Interesting video Peter. If I cut or sand MDF, my skin burns, I break out in rashes. It takes several days to go away. The pain is horrible. After watching your video, I need to be specific on the where the MDF is made. Buy the good stuff and see what happens. Maybe I'm just allergic to that stuff.
@@10MinuteWorkshop regular MDF mate. Bought from a main wood supplier. I gotta look into Medite because, generally most furniture these days is made using MDF. And I can't continue using it with. It's weird because I don't get a reaction with plywood or OSB. I really appreciate you doing this video and opening my mind. Thanks mate.
Very interesting and well presented. Agree with you as an installer, probably a very good thing to run the before and after test with documentation. It certainly can not hurt. I looked at these monitors on Ali Express and they are not so expensive, I will buy one for my shop.
Thanks. If you’re buying for your shop just bear in mind that they don’t monitor air quality below pm2.5 (ie 2.5 microns) whereas the other one I have (links in the video description) monitors to 0.3 microns, but doesn’t do HCHO or TVOC levels. 👍
Peter thank you for making this intelligent and well researched video. Much better researched than the Guardian article which was up to its usual miserably low standard. The readers comments to the article were a joy to behold and a great demonstration of why democracies are dangerous! The most surprising fact to me was that the female customer claimed to be a scientist!
Brilliant video Peter thanks for this , I always wear a mask while sanding, sawing etc but I might invest in some better ventilation in my underground workshop.
Great bit of research here Peter. Thanks for posting. I wonder if the ‘real wood’ section results would have been so high if you hadn’t exposed so much of the inner fibres. What about plywood though because the layers are stuck together with glue? Best wishes.
After a long day of cutting mdf, chipboard and melamine I get very tired and exhausted.... but I go to sleep every night and I feel a lot better in the morning
nice Video Peter. Just ordered of those gadgets as I am interested to see what my wooden floored, wooden kitchen worktopped, wood staircased, Timber doored, fitted mdf alcove units and wardrobed house yields. Or do you think I should just curl up now.
![Painting MDF Doors [video 407]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZIwNJGlVtwc/mqdefault.jpg)
![Painting MDF Doors [video 407]](/img/tr.png)
Well I have to say I'm absolutely disgusted and don't know how you can even bare to touch it or be in the same room as it for that matter. I seriously hope you wore gloves... and a mask... when you bought a copy of the Guardian. 😂😂👍
😂👍 Full Haz-mat suit, face-mask the works. It was the only way I could live with myself... 😂😂 I think we may be chatting about this soon, eh?? 👍👍
It’s Test Tuesday! Shouldn’t you be posting a video! 😂😂
You both make great, informative videos! Keep it up guys! They are appreciated!
Just out of a matter of interest, sometimes my timber merchant has Trupan MDF in stock, made in Chile *I think*. Even for their cheapo standard version, it says "Complies with formaldehyde emission requirements for MDF
in CPA-ECC-2011, ANSI 208.2 2016 and CCR 93120.2 (CARB Composite Wood ATCM Phase II)."... which is presumably beyond EU requirements. Honestly, the whole article is sensationalist bollocks but massively damaging to joinery businesses everywhere.
@@GosforthHandyman Good job it wasn't the daily mail he was reading with your Chilean MDF, coming over here, taking our MDF's jobs...
@@GosforthHandyman Yep, CARB phase 2 is a much more stringent set of requirements - basically their 'target value' is 0.05 mg/m3, whereas the UK HSE FAQ says that formaldehyde is present naturally at levels of ~0.03 mg/m3 🤷♂️
Aren't newspapers made from wood pulp? Have you tried surrounding your meter with copies of the Guardian? I'm sure the press would be interested in the results.
A freshly opened newspaper often gives off an odour from the ink that is used. This means that there are significant volatile organic compounds in the air in the vicinity of the newspaper. Is The Guardian toxic? 😉
@@filmbluff99 I like that smell in small doses lol
@@filmbluff99 I think that all newspapers (and most other so-called news mediums) are toxic... Les
I have to ask... But how could furniture made from MDF ever be considered "High-End"? Oak can be dug up from Peat Bogs after thousands of years. MDF won't last overnight in a good rainstorm.
Marketing. 👍
Well there's the dimensional accuracy which will stay, not warp etc and for standard modern houses do you really want your interior to last thousands of years? Though yeah for really old housing it's bit different.
So true
Fine art (paintings) are made from ground up bits of plant and rock. So I think it's also about what you do with the raw material, not just what it is.
Great video, two remarks to add: the HCOH sensor used is also sensitive towards other components eg Methanol. So basically worst case wood emits methanol and mdf emits formaldehyde.. and second: formaldehyde is proven not suspected carcinogenic and causes cancer in the upper regions of the nose. It also sensitizes causing asthma and skin problems. OSHA requires monitoring if twa is about 0.5ppm and the limit is 0.75ppm. So basically not allowed to work if >0.75ppm.
All these technicalities mean that formaldehyde should be taken very seriously regardless of its source. In poor ventilated rooms formaldehyde may build up over time. Ideally homes have sufficient mechanical or natural ventilation.
The issue with MDF (and particle-board) is the adhesive used to bond it all together. The basis of such adhesives has often been "Formaldehyde" which has proven to irritate the eyes, nose and throat plus cause asthma. Formaldehyde is also a known carcinogen. After Hurricane Katrina when many were housed in quickly assembled caravans (or similar) made from particle-board there was a health concern about the fumes. The fumes of the adhesive will dissipate over time. It has always been good advice to employ breathing masks when machining MDF not only because of the fine dust of the wood (once saw-dust & wood chips) but also of the glue. When once employed manufacturing MDF this was always made with low Formaldehyde content for the Japanese market who were particularly fussy.
It sparked my attention when you recommended a cyanate in preference to urea-formaldehyde. It may not release any formaldehyde, but one has to balance that against the release of cyanates, which can be pretty nasty in very small quantities. I know they are a serious safety issue in foam factories, where I occasionally work. Now I know MDI is considered the safest of the cyanates, and I don't know the numbers, but if we are going to look at toxicity it would be well to have comparative figures on the relevant hazardous materials and not just assume that if it is free from urea and VOCs, it must be OK.
Peter, it would be interesting to see the results whilst you were machining MDF in the workshop, both for gas and dust. People should also be aware that many foamed products, such as insulation and carpet underlay, may release gases over time as they decompose. These items can be much more extensive in a domestic situation than timber or MDF.
Interesting story. I used to work in a factory making MDF and Particleboard, the formaldehyde is part of the resin used to bind the wood chips and fibres under heat and pressure.
Hello,
So do you think that MDF is ok?
Good, balanced approach to this type of problem in your video. In the US, there's been lots of hype to super insulate and super seal older houses as a way to help save energy costs. Fine, but. . . those houses were meant to breathe. Once you super seal you are containing many substances (chemical/mold/naturally occurring substances incl Radon) that could be unhealthy if concentrations get too high. So, one thing I wondered was whether the house in question had such super seal/insulation and was all closed up. Like your workshop over the weekend. In general the air outside a house is healthier than the air inside. I've never wanted a super insulated house. Never, that is, until the recent "Polar Vortex" event in my region. Everything got strangely cold even with the furnace running full blast.
Too bad that newspapers, most of which are dying, have become less and less likely to research what they print, even the best ones.
Thanks! And great point about the ‘super-sealed’ aspect; hadn’t thought of that. I know the area well and the type of houses are all old, but heavily ‘modernised’ with double-glazing, mega-insulation etc... 👍👍
K.B. Woodworker
I have a super insulated house that stays comfortable even when the heating is off. It also has a mechanical air circulation system that takes the air from inside and puts it outside and takes fresh air inside.
I have had several air monitor reports done to make sure levels are within acceptable levels. I have training in chemical pathology so I can use the air reports and make sense of them. The problem is that the majority of people that make comments or write about these issues are very ignorant and are prone to make such ignorance part of their propeganda.
@@bighands69 Sounds like yours was done right. I'm well aware that people can have such a mechanical air circulation system installed. But that's usually not the case. Many people here in the U.S. just do it piecemeal. There's lots of PR about sealing the house here, but I can't remember any PR about a mechanical air circ. system. I've known people who have had the various remedies done, but nary a one who had the air circ done. Having professionals do the whole job at once is beyond the budget of most average people. Most people don't have your training, and not a clue about the air quality problem.
BTW, not propaganda, just concern about what I see happening. I'm not against someone doing this if they can find the budget for it, keeping an eye on the air quality problem.
Interesting, in my country (China),some medias and commercial organizations sell “formaldehyde phobia” to the public and they succeed. Now when people choosing furnitures or materials for interior finish they always want to choose formaldehyde free products
which is ridiculously impossible. And they obsess with anti-formaldehyde products such as some kind of spray or something like that.
So MDF is made of wood, which contains formaldehyde, all wood contains it and emits it over time. So replacing MDF with solid wood will not solve the issue. It's also possible that the binding of the wood fibres in MDF actually reduces the emission rate which is why the rate rose in Peter's experiment with the wood.
The simple fact is we are all surrounded by things that cause cancer and if you live long enough you will more likely than not develop a form of cancer. You will probably never know the cause.
Cancer is more to do with a persons own genetics than the environment they live in.
My Grandfather lived until he was 90 and smoked all his life. I am sure that if I smoked it would cause major problems very quickly.
bighands69 alas not really correct, at least according to my oncologist and the clinical geneticist I saw a few weeks ago... There are some inherited predispositions to certain cancers but not as many as you'd think...
Diet is the biggest risk factor for cancer. Diet has surpased smoking as a risk factor. Processed meat is classified as a class 1 carcinogen like Asbestos. Risk factors for cancer increase as the percentage of meat and dairy exceed 10 percent of calories. The suspect is not only contaminates but the animal protein and fat themselves. That s just cancer, there are dozens of other complications too. Its well documented and has been known for at least 100 years but is rarely talked about for fear of upsetting the meat and dairy industry.
Anthony Romano alas no it’s not. Age is by far the greatest risk factor. As Macmillan will tell you. Yes diet can have an effect but being overweight is a higher factor than meat. The anti meat brigade are trying to drum up support by false propaganda and ignoring the facts.
@@robinturner2300 By meat brigade do you mean the world health organization, the entire scientific community, and 100 years of evidence?
As you suspect, the Guardian article was almost certainly womping on about VOCs from paint.
The real issue with working with MDF is that cutting it up makes sub-micron fibril dust -typically much finer than real wood, save processed oak- and that escapes a lot of collection and gets breathed in. Lungs are awful at moving out fibres. So now you've got carcinogenic-emitting fibres stuck in your lungs. I'm not going to suggest that MDF is Asbestos 2.0 but it's not worth the risk of not using suitable PPE. That five minutes a day is worth a lower risk of dying from mesothelioma.
The only known cause of mesothelioma. is Asbestos.
@@anthonyromano8565 Nonsense. Mesothelioma can and does occur anywhere there is a mesothelial layer (most of the body). Asbestos is not the only cause. Even in the lungs.
@@OliWarner As a contractor we take a test on Asbestos. If there is another known cause name it.
@@OliWarner Its also a rare form of cancer so mdf dust will just cause run of the mill cancer.
@@anthonyromano8565 Only 80% of mesothelioma is caused by asbestos these days. Again, were talking about a cancer of a tissue. Any carcinogen can cause it.
Only asbestos can cause asbestosis. Maybe that's what you're thinking of.
The Guardian.......why let the facts get in the way of a good story!
Like you, I work with Medite MDF a fair bit. My concern has never been with the Formaldehyde content but with the dust. I know of two 'wood' workers who have suffered dust trigger cancers: one fatal, the other dealt with before it was too late but still had life changing effects. I strongly recommend serious dust control such as you have shown in previous videos. Thought I was pretty good at it but today have been having a workshop clean up and found nasty collections of dust in dark little corners. Maybe I'm not as clean as I thought I was and need to think again.
Thanks Graham. I agree entirely; whatever we think of the Guardian story, there's no harm in being shaken up a little to improve dust collection and monitoring. If it hadn't been for this story, I would never had considered a formaldehyde or TVOC meter 👍
Good video. Well balanced. There are a couple of things I haven't seen mentioned in the article and you might consider to look at later. 1) Do they air out the room/home/apartment regularly or do they keep it closed up. If they keep it closed up it would be closer to your workshop was when you checked it as you first came in. 2) Were all the materials new MDF or wood? The paint had to be new. If the MDF and wood give off the formaldehyde gas, it should lessen over time. You might want to compare some old well aged wood vs new wood and likewise some new MDF vs some you've had lying around for a year or so to see if the air quality is affected by time. The same should go for paint as well. Thanks again for a good video.
I fitted some MDF skirting boards last year and they required a considerable amount of sanding. I must say, I was wary at the time about the dust given off and clearly any toxic fumes would have been many many times higher than one might expect when the skirting boards had been fitted and painted over. It would be interesting to know just how high the levels were during such work.
This is quite informative. Thank you for pointing out this article. I probably wouldn't normally notice it - even though I'm pro natural wood and plywood and anti all other kinds of artificial/engineered wood. Having said that, my home is full of MDF and particleboard furniture - there's probably the odd piece of real wood furniture but that's just it.
I'd be careful with any air quality monitoring device if used for professional purposes. I'd make doubly sure it's been calibrated and approved by a government approved laboratory. The reason I mention this is that it's all well and good reading the display readings and expecting to be in safe/unsafe air quality environment based on them, but what is this device actually measuring? and what do these readings mean exactly? How must the measurements be done, in what conditions etc.? For the formaldehyde reading, what is being measured is quite unambiguous, so the only question is whether the device is calibrated and used correctly. For VOC readings, I'd want a clear definition of what the device measures, from its spec sheet, and a confirmation from a laboratory.
As far as the reported case is concerned, it's hard to make any definite conclusions from the article. It's simply impossible to make an educated guess and isolate the possible irritant from the information given. It's probably nearly impossible to replicate the conditions now. Was it the MDF used? Was it the paint and solvents used or other substances such as glues, putties etc.? Could it be something unrelated to the furniture installed by the company mentioned? Who knows - it's impossible to draw a conclusion.
The only thing that must be certain is this: all modern homes should be aerated every day (assuming there's no valid reason not to so, such as an industrial accident or forest fire). The reason is, modern homes are constructed with all sorts of man-made materials and most of them, being composites containing organic compounds, emit all kinds of VOCs. Besides, there is the normal build-up of VOCs, other gases and dust that are a direct by-product of our normal daily home activities - not to mention germs etc.
I have very sensitive eyes. And yes, (unpainted) MDF boards give me itchy eyes. I have the same issue with chipboard so I only get solid wood furniture.
That is probably to do with the resin used as binder, some resins give me a similar reaction. Do you get the same problem with the moisture resistant type, they use different binder resin for that.
@@paulround8501 the resin could indeed be the culprit. I’m avoiding all non solid wood at the moment, so I don’t know what type of resin that might be the cause.
That's the problem with journalism these days. Failure to research.
The job appears to start with "what angle do we want to take on this?" and then fill paragraphs to suit.
That's the Guardian for you.
It needs to end.
@@tellis9844 Not just the Guardian.
In the 70s, GF and I married, had a house built, and had a family, in Canberra.
Canberra gets a little chilly, and we were on bottled gas. A bottle lasted, I think, a week.
There were some businesses offering to insulate homes, by pumping some foam stuff into the walls. we had one around, he did his thing, and coincidentally, we went on holiday to estern Australia for a few months. That might be when we went to Coral Bay for a couple of weeks.
We returned home, and found our house much warmer, and our gas consumption dropped to about one bottle a year.. The gas supplier thought we must have switched to electricity.
Time passed, I got a jb in Melbourn and we moved on, in due course we sold the house.
Then there was some fuss and bother about foam insulation and formaldehyde and the fumes irritating people's throats and lungs, and words about cancer.
We had no problems, perhaps leaving the house vacant cleared any fumes, perhaps we were more tolerant than most, perhaps we were just lucky, perhaps ou supplier used a better product.
Thanks for the details Peter, a great level headed review of the Formaldehyde situation. I know that you tested the pine with the meter but I would have liked to have seen a similar test with MDF. Maybe there's a Test Tuesday in there somewhere, comparing various MDF types!
I don't know, Peter's whole workshop is filled with MDF, it's all over the place. I suspect the meter would have been going crazy if there was a real problem with MDF.
When I was a teenager, Dad had some sheep. Somehow, they got footrot, and the farm was quarantined. Dad had two choices. Killing and burning didn't appeal, so we trimmed their hooves and bathed them regularly in a formaldehyde solution,
The sheep recovered, quarantine was lifted.
Modern homes are tightly sealed, and most people won't be opening the doors and windows periodically in the middle of winter (or worse, summer in warmer climates). This allows accumulation; however, the culprits are probably the paint, as you say.
I played around with an air quality meter at my last home and was amazed at how high the numbers went when the meter was placed near the walls. The radiant heat from the exterior during summer seemed to make things 10 times worse. This was in an older apartment that had clearly been painted multiple times with what I suspect was economy paint - the only thing that could've made it worse would have been modern, tightly-sealed construction.
Just about to buy my first Medite MR MDF sheets for my campervan conversion. Great videos and superbly presented. Thank you :)
So if you take this to the next level, living in a log cabin is a death trap!
You cant be that stupid...can you
That explains how Abraham Lincoln taught himself to be a lawyer in a log cabin...toxic studying. I'm sure his burning lamps made him brighter too.
Log cabins also have lots of gaps and voids in the structure that facilitates air exchange. The chimney also means a constant air exchange. Modern houses are built to be as airtight as possible so any VOCs are trapped inside.
there are (it appears) so many interesting ways to kill ones self
Lout K : Please lighten up! Mechanoid 57 was attempting to be funny, maybe sarcasm perhaps.
First of all, the quality of MDF can vary greatly depending on the type of adhesive used during manufacturing. I am very sensitive to formaldehyde, and I can tell if it’s bad when I wake up 2 am in the middle of the night with a bad throat. That’s exactly what happened to me last night, the day I installed a new glass display stand in my bedroom. I woke up coughing and realized the room smelled really bad. I attempted to sniff out the source of the odor, and it turned out that the manufacturer used cheap unsealed MDF underneath the base of the glass stand and it was reeking of adhesive chemical fumes. Do not take formaldehyde emitting MDF lightly. I’m about to throw this thing out of my house.
Secondly, do not trust those cheapo air quality checkers made from China. They react to pretty much any type of gas. Try eating an orange and breathe into the device. I will bet the formaldehyde sensor will go off; oranges don’t have formaldehyde. There’s a good reason why actual air quality tests are so expensive.
In the USA we see a lot of Chinese MDF and (at one time) some very toxic drywall (paper faced gypsum sheet, not sure what it might be called in UK). The drywall had high bisulfates and when damp the bisulfates reacted, creating sulfamic acid. It was recalled, and in many cases, removed from new homes.
I’ve been using MDF for 25 years; no problem. Great paint finish but heavy to move. I like it.
in our quest for warmer homes and as a result sealing them, it's little wonder we get a build up of fumes etc with little ventilation. Just to add I used to work in a factory making kids play furniture, basically scaled down furniture, made from MDF, for a few years and was never really aware of this issue, and yet I am still on this planet.
A really well researched and thoughtful video Peter, and a lot of common sense excellent 👍
A few years ago I painted our living room with Crown emulsion and after a few months there was a smell of gas, we called out the gas board and there was no leak and we found that the smell was coming from the paint on the walls. The smell eventually disappeared a few months later. Another interesting video Peter 👍🥃🏴
Have to say, I was a little taken aback by the TVOC levels on Monday morning - though it soon disappeared 👍👍
One might wonder what how the levels of freshly cut wood compares to freshly cut mdf, instead of comparing it to the minimum standard? As a sensitive asthmatic I have often been unable to tolerate certain furniture assemblies, due to excessive off-gassing, they usually contained some sort of mdf or osb, along with other furniture products, ike rubber bladders, (i.e. air mattress w/mdf mattress support) processed leather, various finishing compounds. Never new exactly what specific caused my respritory distress, but solid wood products didn't seem to bother me.
Hey Peter! You have gotten me interested in MR-MDF. Finding this stuff in the USA is like finding a unicorn at the end of a rainbow. I do have a few questions: 1) Are you familiar with "Fire resistant MDF" vis a vis MR MDF? Also Axeminster has a MFT made out of HDF (High density fiberboard). It seems as if HDF. I was curious about its properties vis a vis MDF as well. Please keep up all the good work on your channel!
Hi Mark. Yes, Flame Retardant MDF is a pretty standard product, generally available in 30 and 60 minute classifications (FD30/FD60). It's generally dyed with a pink tinge vs green with MR; dyed are for easy visual identification, they don't affect the performance of the board. Flame retardancy is generally a requirement in public spaces, so most manufacturers will offer a board that complies; there's information on the Medite FR boards here - mdfosb.com/en/products/medite-mdf/flame-retardant-mdf
And HDF is a standard board, but used in more specialist applications where you need a denser board; the downside is weight, with HDF coming in at 50-100% more then MDF, it's not a board I've ever had to use. HTH P
You are spot on about the TVOC from the paint being the culprit! Paint is loaded with volatile organic compounds that off-gas while the paint is drying. To be fair, in toxicology you can have what is called a synergistic effect where having two compounds mix is much much stronger than one alone (it's actually super common), think of that first drag on a cigarette if you haven't smoked in awhile after a few good stiff drinks and you'll get the idea. Formaldehyde and a compound that is called DMF(dimethylformamide) is very similar to formaldehyde and is used in some paint formulations. If the couple had a lot of both in the room my guess is they would have headaches like mad, nausea and vomiting if it's real bad. That's all signs of getting a weak toxic dose, cancer comes later :)
Thanks! Yes, AC paints in particular are known for off-gassing formaldehyde during the curing phase. Of course, we don’t know what paints were used in this case - or at least, nobody’s saying. 🤷♂️👍
Fascinating. I wonder about plywood with all the glue involved. Almost seems like living is hazardous to living. Thanks Peter!
Yep - plywood is specifically mentioned in the HSQ FAQ mentioned in the vid. All depends on the glues ('binders') used. 👍
Thanks for this Peter. Always been vaguely aware of the supposed dangers in working with MDF but you've now brought me up to speed. Excellent presentation, put into lay person terms with some sensible and practical conclusions and good reference documents too. Thanks again 👍
Good topic and good information. I've been asked about this by clients and always found it difficult to answer. Appreciate the video.
Thanks Peter for a well presented article that will dispel the miths surrounding MDF and Formaldehyde. I do feel for the couple in the article though.
I unfortunately caught a mouthful of MDF dust which stuck in my throat. The next day I developed a very nasty cough which has persisted now for 18 months, accompanied by thick buttons of glue like phlegm. The NHS have tried all sorts of treatment to no avail, fortunately it is not cancerous or affected my lungs, just bloody annoying and inconvenient !!
Sorry to hear that John, and as I hope it's clear fro the video, I'm not making light of the dangers of dust while woodworking, as all wood dust is hazardous. But I do feel the newspaper article is pointing the finger at the wrong guy when it comes to formaldehyde, and in particular fumes from a fitted furniture installation. 👍
@@10MinuteWorkshop Not at all Peter It is a very well balanced presentation. I only gave a factual account of my recent experience which is as I said mainly inconvenient rather than serious. I stopped buying the Guardian & other papers over 40 years ago after they made fauls allegations about my family.
I've manufactured mdf kitchen and bedroom doors for 16years now in one of the UK's largest suppliers, I have never noticed any toxic fumes nor has the 120 other people the work in the factory.... I would suggest wearing a mask when working with it.... other than that 100% safe....
Surely the carpenter cutting the MDF up is at the highest risk of breathing in something bad? Once something is built and sealed in paint (depending on the paint), is the MDF even an issue? Perhaps there just need to be guidelines to open the windows for a 10 minutes after fitting the furniture?
Hey Peter. I wish I would have known that MR MDFs like Medite, Extira, and Medex are not only moisture resistant, but they are "super refined". Because the SR aspect is crucial for a quality product in my opinion. Now that I know this, I absolutely love using these products and will use them every chance I get from now on.
Try Lakeland paints at Heysham or Lancaster for Ecologically friendly paints. In the Uk always ask for MSD sheets for any paint or adhesives before buying to ensure you will not buy somthing you may find harmful to you.
I used a lot of mdf 20 years ago when I came to Canada, I developed a rash on the back of my head that stayed around for quite a while. I got away from using mdf on the whole. The rash is gone along with most of my hair! 😂 Seriously it is a versatile product , but the weight of it used in cabinets is so great compared to plywood. I prefer birch ply but I know it's twice the price and you can't build doors out of it. Another great video Peter. Happy New Year from 🇨🇦
I went to a warehouse where they were storing mdf and chipboard sheets. I couldn't stand their even for a second. There was something in the air that caused my eyes to burn. I have visited other mdf storage places and have found similar eye burning sensation.
No idea I'm sorry - nothing I've ever experienced. Could be dust-related?? 🤷♂️
Hi Peter thank you for your responce we did paint the MDF with MDF primer then eggshell paint but all waterbased. I have heard that if you use zinnerbin to prim it then their would be no smell from the MDF. But I'm thinking if I would have to sand back to re paint. I might be better of getting the safer MDF but I know its going to be awkward removing some of the shelfs that have been glued inside the fitted wardrobe. But I'm so put off by the formaldehyde smell. I think we have no choice but to buy the safer MDF and start again.
Just happened across this video..!! and although very informative it did make me smile… we sit around fire pits, barbecue’s wood stoves, sit in steaming hot saunas loving the fresh smell of whatever toasted wood is in there , we have radioactive granite worktops and we smear some fairly unsavoury chemicals on our bodies to keep the U.V. Rays at bay …?? I mean “ REALLY” I do my best to mitigate dust when working and I’m an avid fan of P.P.E. But maybe we should worry more about the tiny pieces of tungsten carbide flying around the workshop and the nano meter size particles of wood created when we burn through a tough cut.!!! OR NOT….!!!! Great video as usual….😁
Fascinating Peter thank you.
More pond life journalists... proud to say I've never purchased a newspaper in my life.
Increased airtightness is making indoor air quality a big issue, so this is really interesting, thank you. Please can you clarify what the levels were when you first returned to the workshop after the weekend?
Yes, I'm sure you're right. I wasn't recording when I first arrived, but it was around 0.18 for HCHO and 2.4 for TVOC. These fell very quickly when the door was opened. 👍
A bit of an eye opener when Natural wood tips the scale... Teaching granny here. Newspapers write stories to sell papers. I pick and choose what I read and the news I watch. Need I say more??
Good morning Peter, it is great idea to underscore problem of toxicity of materials. Formaldehyd is volative solvent which is included in glues nad resin to stabilize them and evaporate during "after use"process. It is kind of alcohol. What will happend when You add to 96% alkohol boiling water and you will do this in small closed room ?
As you show at technical card, it is almost everywhere, but question is how much? I did not read this articele, I am guesing the tone of this article is like almost everything in newspaper(current newspappers should became just wood pulp again asap). We call it ecoterroism in my country. There are trees that includes in their tissue more dangerous metals that we can imagine like lead, chromium, Mn, etc. I am pretty neutral and trying to be rational when using post wood product.
I like your vlog. Take care.
I guess doing lines of MDF dust and shots of paint thinner are gone now huh,i agree with you as somebody may have tried to cut corners using an industrial sealer with high HVCs ,OACs and ABCs (LOL),that being a work site has plenty of time to dry and clear of these things but i think if its a Reno,well you wont just have it in the built in cabinets ,it can be in the trim,flooring (MFG),doors ,finishes and i think we know the benefits of water based products , i dont know about the UK but here in North America there a little more costly then the old alternatives ,and i have done the new plastic flooring (water resistant and Quote" can be taken up cleaned and but back down (never happen people break the tabs off to often ,but you want a smell try cutting that to fit ,interesting to see how you make out with the news paper ,the days of good reporting are gone they lack integrity
Haha, certainly at my age, Syd, lol! There's lots more to this story than has been reported, I'm sure, but we only have what's been reported, so far. 🤷♂️👍
@@10MinuteWorkshop sent you a pick of my frosty front yard Peter on instagram new at the phone photos and messages on instagram ...lol no body will be with a warm drink today
Sorry for three comments on a 4 year old post but there it is. One last thought, long before MDF, and long before eye and mouth protection were a thing, in the woodworking industry there was nasal cancer and "brown lung" caused by inhaling wood dust. I am not a fan of MDF for other reasons, I love wood grain, and MDF is so heavy, but it is no more toxic or dangerous than any other woodworking material.
Hey Peter great vid. I recently finished making audio absorbers for my home studio and the front panels are made of MDF. 16 of them. They cover most the wall in the room.The front and the sides were painted with waterbased paint. 2 coats. There are small holes we made across the panels so we get better sound absorption. Those were not painted. Too many of them and hard to get the paint in there :D Anyhow now that the project is finished the whole room smells funny. Like new furniture. Wood and glue kinda smell. I am worried it might be the MDF offgassing, no? I am keeping the windows open all the time but all this "going down the formaldehyde internet rabbit-hole"gave me a scare. Maybe I should get rid of the MDF panels altogether??? I remember in 2011 I bought an IKEA workdesk and had to keep the windows fully open for two weeks for the smell to evaporate. What do you think?
Was it regular or MR MDF? And was it from a known manufacturer (Medite, Caber, Kronospan, Finsa) or something cheap & cheerful from a DIY shed? If it's reglar MDF from an uncertain source, then it's possible that it's could be of-gassing, but virtually every board manufactured within the EU has been essentially formaldehyde free for a long, long time. What type of paint was it - water-based or oil-based?
@@10MinuteWorkshop It's from a certified dealer. I called they said the do not mess around with this stuff. It's all strict EU regulations. We used acrylic water based colour.
How is it now, how did it work out?
Interesting topic Peter. I often hear that just about anything "new" is off-gassing chemicals. This also reminds me of the "Chinese dry wall formaldehyde scare of the 1990s. I think a big issue is what to do with all the information. Hmmm, my new router table is a giant slab of...Phenolic. By the way, did you know that bananas are somewhat radioactive? OK I'm off to find some eyedrops.
. My Dad was a carpenter for 40 years, when MDF was introduced to the UK he was advised to always cut it outside or wear a mask if cutting it inside. I read MDF is banned in Canada, France and China due to the levels of formaldehyde gas.
Do some more reading. MDF hasn’t been banned anywhere, and the majority of MDF has been essentially formaldehyde free for donkeys years. 40 years ago? Sure, just like there was formaldehyde in shampoo and fabric conditioner. Now, not so much. 🤷♂️👍
@@10MinuteWorkshop Excellent point. Glad I found your channel, it's been wonderful viewing for the past few weeks. I respect how you're not brand obsessed when it comes to tools, concentrating more on the technique/productive side of woodworking. Keep up the amazing work with the channel Peter.
A couple of comments regarding Formaldehyde. We are in Australia. Have previously bought MDF from Bunnings and found it is at high rate of Formaldehyde. Once we found the MDF is rated with it, decided never to use MDF. There are some lower rated Formaldehyde for some MDF here by suppliers, but not easy to buy it. Similar for plyboards also here.
Yes, Formaldehyde is in normal timbers. Your method of running multiple slots of saws through the normal timbers would allow a large of Formaldehyde to be released into to the air. Normal timbers would not release as much as that without those many saw slots in it. If you had similar MDF and run the saws in it like that, it would also release more Formaldehyde.
Would be better to supply the same size of timbers and MDF and do measures for Formaldehyde, showing the any differences of health from either of them.
Here in the UK all boards are manufactured to strict standards - I mentioned this in the video. All the MDF I use is, as stated in the video, MR MDF that meets or exceeds the most stringent CARB p2 standards. I didn’t have a ‘method for running multiple slots through timber’ I used what I had - these cuts were made over a week before this video, and it wasn’t a ‘test’ - MDF has been tested to death - it was to show how easily the WHO and CARB standards could be exceeded - 20 minutes in this instance. More to come on this story - video out on Friday. 👍👍
@@10MinuteWorkshop Fair enough. Your video is available to the whole world, not just to the UK or Europe.
Just test normal timbers and MDF. Having many slots in timbers will let out more Formaldehyde. That is a poor way of talking about formaldehyde between timber and MDF.
Yes, I'm fortunate to have an International audience. I just watched the 13-minute video again, and I mention UK, EU, European standards, etc.. etc.. nine times. Nine times in 13 minutes. Seriously, I couldn't be any clearer about where I am and the standards that I'm discussing. I think you're missing the point completely about the natural timber section of the video; this wasn't a 'test' of any material, it was to show that the standards set by WHO and CARBp2 could be easily exceeded by boards that most folk think of as natural, sustainable and ecologically sound. That's it 🤷♂️
So interesting. Thanks for all the info, Peter. Scott
What about the fibre aspect of MDF rather than just the off-gassing? How dangerous are the particles expelled when machining?
The ‘fine dust’ aspect of MDF is well documented - see the HSE FAQ in the description. 👍👍
Hello Mr. Peter. I was wondering if you've heard of a new material called NFC (Natural Fibre Composite). There's no wood used in this material, but looks very similar to wood and does feel a lot like wood. Infact, it can even be bent like natural wood by heating, which cannot be done by other composite materials like WPC (Wood Plastic Composite). It would be great if you could review this new material if you have access to it. As always, love your videos.👍
No, never heard of it but I’ll take a look thanks!
Wrap the meter in The Guardian, and see what the formaldehyde and total VOCs get up to. :D
In my country people have started using pvc foamboards. Primarily because pvc is moisture and termite proof.
🎽 SAFTEY NOTICE 🎽
LIVING IS INJURIOUS TO YOUR HEALTH
PLEASE STOP IMMEDIATELY.😉
Good one Pete take no chances Millard👍👍👍👍👍🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻
Or as my Doctor says, " Life is basically a terminal STD".
Would a regulatory agency permitted God to create the 🌎?
This reminds me of the time I used Crown 'Breath Easy' paint because I have asthma and have difficulty breathing with some paints. Even a couple days after the paint had dried I was having trouble sleeping and had really bad headaches, but only in the room that we used the Breath Easy paint. In the rooms with the generic cheap paint I was fine.
Since then I've just been using regular paint and haven't had an issue!
After reading the article (with two adblocks running just in case lol), I'm left wondering what the actual story is, surely if the MDF was sealed and painted, then the emissions from it would be next to nothing, so it would have to be the paint.
But if I've learned anything, it's don't believe anything in newspapers, doesn't matter if they align with your political views or not, especially when the first thing in the article is a photo of the couple with their 'compo face' on 😂
What were the ambient levels e.g. monitor in the centre of the room without being closely surrounded by materials? Is this another scare story by the newspapers? No more bacon, alcohol and now wood!
Toluene Di-Isocyanate was the basic raw material traded which used to be used in foam rubber. You may remember this product accounted for over 50% of deaths in house fires in the UK. It is now banned in the UK, not sure if Northern Ireland have instituted this yet.
This is FAR too near the PMDI used in high quality MDF. I wouldn't contemplate using this stuff for ANY articles inside a home, in case of fire, when the Diisocyanate would decompose into Cyanide gas.
I would guess that the California standards were based on a volume of air greater than the space around your meter. If the wood was left to gas into your workshop. the concentration of chemicals would be greatly diluted. You do make a great point in that even benign wood will give off those gases. An interesting experiment would be to repeat the test with a more controlled volume of air and include some other materials such as MDF and MR MDF. Thanks for the interesting video.
Just when people think they have got it clear in their mind you confuse them with facts and logic!!
Good video Peter, nothing like a clear demonstration to show that sometimes people worry too much.
As far as I know, people have lived in forests for thousands of years with no ill effect.
Haha, hadn't thought of the forest angle, nice one!
Thanks for the interesting article - very thought provoking. Unfortunately there is little doubt that working with MDF on a regular basis will dramatically increase the chance of a number of cancers and other respiratory problems. Formaldehyde is only a part of this risk. The worst issue,by far, is dust ingestion. Airbourne release of the organic content when storing is never going to be a problem, relatively speaking. This becomes so much worse when using boards of dubious (cheap) manufacture. The only answer is good respiratory protection and then general air filtration.
Absolutely; all wood dust is hazardous - pointing the finger of blame at MDF (as this article does) does nobody any favours. 👍
Great little workshop,
Couple of points I think are important a, Your demo of natural wood created a false positive as the boxing causes reduced natural airflow circulation... The other thing is formaldehyde whilst is natural to all organic matter its also "permanently volatile" tthus other chemicals especially paints and finishes (and you rightly point out its most likly this that was the issue in the article)
Finally even some big MDF suppliers are on occasion unsure of their source product with multinational companies "rebranding" thier purchases as their own thus you can innodvertantly end up with some asian or other MDF with many undesirable chemicals involved in the glue process.
Once again though Pete a Great Job!
Nice topic, but however, I think quite a few persons get misled a bit. For your test: Your have a lot of wood for a pretty small air-volume. So calling it "a little bit of natural wood" is a bit unfair :-D. Did you try the same setup with MDF? It could be interesting to see a relation between materials and also what happens if you paint (seal) it which would be a bit more the real life situation.
However, I am more interested in your Particle Matter monitor. Have you observed that one while you are working (expecially sanding or cutting wood)? I am always amazed what you can squeeze out of your small and occupied workspace (not having a workshop at all ;-). So that whould be really interesing to see how good dust extraction acutally works after a long day in the workshop.
There are a lot of difficult words to pronounce in this video and you have done well to nail them. I think as a professional jointer you have a good reason to worry about the negative article which could have brought to the business as well as your own health. I probably won’t be bother to read that article myself but as far as I understand after your short experiment, the trick to maintain a low level of exposure is simple good ventilation. For me, I am more concern what the cigarettes do to me than the MDF !
I came across a primer which CLAIMED to contain all the harmful 'exhalations' from MDF - can't remember who made it but it was VERY expensive. I wonder what your meter would read if you kept it in a new car - the interior 'out-gasses' from the plastics, fabric and carpet (new-car smell) for a long time. I've heard that the lovely smell of fresh-cut pine is actually quite dangerous for you on continued exposure ( high VOCs ? ) And what about finishing with Danish / Tung oil... Oh God, all the things I like are SO hazardous !
I'd be interested to see what the air quality is at a warehouse that sells MDF.
Very interesting video. Thanks for sharing. I'll follow the links and read the article and the reports.
What I understood from other publications on the emission of non-moisture-resistant MDF (so the MDF with formaldehyde in it) is, that when you paint that MDF,
the emission of MDF lowers (or even stops, I do not remember) because the formaldehyde cannot go through the layers of paint, or much slower.
That makes sense, in a way.
On the other hand, how long (months years) can an MDF board emit formaldehyde? I mean when there is an XXX amount of formaldehyde in it, and the
emission is X per day, it should stop after 111 days (when X is for example from 2 to 9) Or not?
Yes, I don't know how long a board - or a piece of solid timber - can emit formaldehyde, but the levels are very low, compared with say, dried Shiitake mushrooms, or green onions and pears 🤷♂️
Peter, I'd like to see what sorrounding the meter with curfed MDF would do? You've picqued my curiosity.
Yes it was a loss to miss this test so that we might compare and contrast. Thanks though Peter for a balanced discussion.
Fantastic video Peter, great knowledge and potential warning to all the carpenters out there. I wonder if you will get any response from the parties involved.
Thanks Tomasz! If I do get any response I’ll be sure to follow it up 👍👍
I wonder how much formaldehyde the paper emitted from The Guardian
I did a quick test of that for my Patreon supporters. 👍👍
I remember particle board, that outgassed so much formaldehyde that I got migraines just walking into a store that had it. MDF is nothing in comparison.
A good reason to make sure you have product liability insurance as well as public liability insurance. But a few quid spend on an air quality metre could be a a good investment so long as you record the results with customer verification
We live in a world where we get our food grown in pesticides, cook it in Teflon pans on gas ranges and store it in MDF cabinets. We're bombarded all the time and I don't see big companies changing their products any time soon
well timed Peter, I just had this piece show up on my news feed and immediately thought of you. I hope my customers recognise the G (and most other newspapers) as the Merchants of Chaos that they are. Meanwhile I can be armed with some truth thanks in no small part to your research. Can't thank you enough Peter.
Cheers Michael. Always worth having the link to the HSE FAQ re MDF on your phone. 👍
I am confused by this. I understand cutting, leaving it bare, sanding it down will release the toxins. However if you seal this and paint it then will it still release the toxins? When you seal it then surely it will keep in all the dust and toxins as they remain compact behind the paint; unless dented or cut again or dropped.
I’d be interested in seeing a test showing how much formaldehyde a person in a small room gives off, just for comparison with the timber.
😂😂😷😷👍
I understand the UN, WHO, California and the EU will be issuing a joint paper to advising that prolonged exposure to life may be hazardous and can result in death. I'm not sure what the threshold PPM is.
As experiments go, Life is pretty poor - I mean, everyone dies! 🤷♂️🤔
Is there not a sealer available for the really worried folks out there.
What levels are your workshop when you're actually cutting the stuff....and does the "M" class dust extractor do its job in removing these very small ppm units....be interesting to stick your little monitor on the output of the dust extractor.
Yes, a painted finish (as most MDF ends up) contains whatever miniscule amounts of off-gassing that occurs.👍
Let's say that, that high end firm, painted the mdf with a catalyzed varnish. The client pushed to have it done sooner than later. The painted product gassed off in the home. The clients eyes watered and burned. Breathing was uncomfortable and now their foggy headed. Mdf is hazardous only while cutting. So if the mdf is sealed by paint how could it be hazardous? So you'll have to test different finishes and measure the VOC levels.
Yep, 'best guess' by all in the business is that it's the e.g. acid cat paint that was the actual issue. I did wonder if there was a 'late in the day' colour change, so paint didn't have time to fully gas off before the install. Gas released by MDF is tiny, assuming branded boards were used, and as you say, the paint seals it in anyway. But we don't really know; all we have is what's been reported. 🤷♂️👍
Great video. I am also suspect as to the relative risk of these various compounds compared to our typical real-world exposure.
I wonder how the MDF numbers were calculated... you may wish to try the same test you did with the natural wood using MDF, because you are comparing the air quality of a whole room (diluted) to a farm more enclosed space (less diluted) to a lab calculation (for which we do not know at what distance, space or dilution they ran their ppm for).
A quick follow-up vid with the same test side by side (one after the other) with wood vs MDF (and maybe other materials?) might be interesting to see.
Thanks! It wasn't really a test as such with the redwood, more to show how readily the 'acceptable levels' of HCHO could be exceeded by a material (timber) that most people think as environmentally friendly and sustainable. 👍🤷♂️
I'm glad I came across this video as I'm in a dilema. We had a loft conversion done early this year and the builders made a built in wardrobe for us from MDF. We left it for two months as we noticed the off gassing smell that is formaldehyde. But the smell never seemed to go. So we painted over it with MDF primer then eggshell 2 coats of each. It was fine during the summer months. But now it has started smelling again of formaldehyde. Now we don't know what to do our options are perhaps to sand the paint off this will cause obviously more exposure to the wood dust or we will have to get the lot stripped out. Not sure what we would replace it with. Any help would be much appreciated.
Hi Georgina. The thrust of this video really is to show that - provided a reputable brand of MDF is used - then any off-gassing is almost certainly from the painting process, and not from the MDF. While formaldehyde is used as a binder in some MDF manufacture, the process of painting it seals this in, so there shouldn’t be any off-gassing, unless cut edges are left exposed somewhere. Painted MDF is a staple of the fitted furniture industry, and thousands of sheets of the product fitted every week across the country, without any issue.
Some people are especially sensitive to chemical odours, of course, and it could be the case that you and your wardrobes aren’t compatible; it’s certainly unusual though, for an odour to go away, then return, and as you say sanding the paint off would likely make the problem worse, if your wardrobes were built from an off-brand MDF. It’s a tough one to deal with, and I’m afraid I don’t have a definitive answer for you, I’m sorry.
@@10MinuteWorkshop
Hi Peter thank you for your responce we did paint the MDF with MDF primer then eggshell paint but all waterbased. I have heard that if you use zinnerbin to prim it then their would be no smell from the MDF. But I'm thinking if I would have to sand back to re paint. I might be better of getting the safer MDF but I know its going to be awkward removing some of the shelfs that have been glued inside the fitted wardrobe. But I'm so put off by the formaldehyde smell. I think we have no choice but to buy the safer MDF and start again.
Hi Peter, I would like my carpenter to buy Medite MDF like you recommended but I have now ground out that there is Medite clear MDF that is formaldehyde free but not available in many places. Is this the one you recommend or is any Medite MDF bound sufficient?
watching this nervously after putting up mdf shelves in my parent's house
Don’t be nervous. The ‘toxic’ thing is massively overstated by this newspaper article - it was almost certainly the paint that was the problem. There’s more to come on this story. 👍👍
@@10MinuteWorkshop well I used a pretty potent paint as well haha. they're still standing though so I'm not actually worried.
Why use MDF for shelves? It has no strength and sags while you look at it. Real wood please, no more expensive and lasts forever. It looks better with age unlike MDF which turns to shite and ends up as landfill.
@@amraceway well I've had some mdf shelves for about 10 years now that are fine. So long as no moisture get to them. Think I'd struggle to find real wood for the same price I paid for the mdf (around a tenner)
I am no style guru but why fill your house with crap looking furniture? Recycled wood is cheaper and I defy anyone to build an MDF shelf that will support heavy books.
Interesting video Peter. If I cut or sand MDF, my skin burns, I break out in rashes. It takes several days to go away. The pain is horrible. After watching your video, I need to be specific on the where the MDF is made. Buy the good stuff and see what happens. Maybe I'm just allergic to that stuff.
Is this regular MDF or MR? And yes, I can heartily recommend Medite - great quality board 👍👍
@@10MinuteWorkshop regular MDF mate. Bought from a main wood supplier. I gotta look into Medite because, generally most furniture these days is made using MDF. And I can't continue using it with. It's weird because I don't get a reaction with plywood or OSB. I really appreciate you doing this video and opening my mind. Thanks mate.
@@hyland1984 Yeah, I recommend giving Medite MR a try - I'm asthmatic and don't have these issues when using Medite MR MDF 👍
Would love to see how much chemicals off gas from the very newspaper that complained about them
Very interesting and well presented. Agree with you as an installer, probably a very good thing to run the before and after test with documentation. It certainly can not hurt. I looked at these monitors on Ali Express and they are not so expensive, I will buy one for my shop.
Thanks. If you’re buying for your shop just bear in mind that they don’t monitor air quality below pm2.5 (ie 2.5 microns) whereas the other one I have (links in the video description) monitors to 0.3 microns, but doesn’t do HCHO or TVOC levels. 👍
@@10MinuteWorkshop Yes, I saw that, but truthfully they are not so expensive to get two devices. Thanks again.
Peter thank you for making this intelligent and well researched video. Much better researched than the Guardian article which was up to its usual miserably low standard. The readers comments to the article were a joy to behold and a great demonstration of why democracies are dangerous! The most surprising fact to me was that the female customer claimed to be a scientist!
Brilliant video Peter thanks for this , I always wear a mask while sanding, sawing etc but I might invest in some better ventilation in my underground workshop.
Brilliant video Peter, keep up the good work
Thank you!
Auto cruise and a coffee break whilst driving an RV in America springs to mind
Great bit of research here Peter. Thanks for posting. I wonder if the ‘real wood’ section results would have been so high if you hadn’t exposed so much of the inner fibres. What about plywood though because the layers are stuck together with glue?
Best wishes.
Thanks Christian. Yes, the binders used in plywood are the same or very similar to those used in MDF. 👍👍
After a long day of cutting mdf, chipboard and melamine I get very tired and exhausted.... but I go to sleep every night and I feel a lot better in the morning
nice Video Peter. Just ordered of those gadgets as I am interested to see what my wooden floored, wooden kitchen worktopped, wood staircased, Timber doored, fitted mdf alcove units and wardrobed house yields. Or do you think I should just curl up now.
Soon as I saw the video notification, I knew it would be about this.
👍👍 You’d have known a couple of hours ago if you follow me on Instagram or Twitter... 🤔👍👍