Flooring

Re: non-offgassing flooring.  The recommendations we have been
making are that vinyl tile is the safest material, the stiffer the
better.  Vinyl tile often has calcium carbonate or other fillers
that act as chemical buffers. Any sheet material has plasticizers
and in many cases it is the plasticizer that causes the most
problems, so materials made to be more flexible can be expected to
offgas the most.  You still have to look at specifications for the
adhesive.  Flexible baseboard moldings, which architects like to
recommend, should not be used for this reason.

I would welcome any further refinements to this recommendation;
hard data are still hard to come by.

B. Appelbaum

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 12:20
                Distributed: Wednesday, August 26, 1998
                       Message Id: cdl-12-20-001
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