Requirement for Laminate flooring to be CARB 2 Compliant.
The California Air Regulatory Board (CARB) permits Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF)
to emit a maximum of 0.11 Parts Per Million of formaldehyde into the
air in order to be CARB 1 Compliant. This floor meets that standard.
Both, CARB 1 (the first set of standards adopted in 2007) and CARB 2 (the
current set of standards, adopted in 2009) are strict, thorough
regulations, both of them exceeding even those of the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA).
Currently, the United States as a whole does not have a set formaldehyde emission
limit for laminate flooring; however the state of California maintains
stringent regulations set out by CARB, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in the process of adopting these same regulations for the rest of the country.
Formaldehyde levels in laminate are measured using the Deconstructive Testing
method, which involves removing both the synthetic wood image (the
photorealistic pattern layer) and the backing or bottom layer from the flooring to expose the core board. The California Air Regulatory Board (CARB) has a number of approved formaldehyde testing methods, which can be found here, but this part of each process is required by CARB.
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