My beautiful new Queen's Room door, with beautiful custom 4 panel transitional style I selected out of hundreds in the TruStile catalog, has a faint smell of Urea Formaldehyde. Probably much less than a brand new plank of particleboard at Home Depot. But enough to make me worry. I now think this was a mistake (though possibly it could be fixed). I sniffed other doors and real wood planks at Home Depot tonight, and none of them had as much formaldehyde smell as my new door.
The thought that this might not be right occurred to me several times in the specification and ordering process. But it got overshadowed by the knowledge that the two most affordable sound reducing doors are MDF and heavy gauge steel as in commercial fire doors (not flimsy builder store exterior doors), and MDF seemed more appropriate. Metal doors seem cold and not suitable inside a house. Only certain hardwoods would be as good, such as Hard Rock Maple, and who can afford a door made out of that?
But for health's sake, I'd sacrifice a few db of sound reduction.
So what are the options now?
I could try to make do with current door. This would require 2 things: coating the inside of the door to reduce outgassing inside the Queen's Room itself (polyurethane is said to be effective at blocking formaldehyde, and there are other blockers), and adding the A/C return register to the room. My key idea--that I would not need the return register because blocking the door undercut would not be the typical case--was wrong. The return register is needed as much or more for air quality as room temperature (this room will probably be one of the most comfortable in the house, due to recent room sealing and new window). A person choosing to block the undercut for a night's sleep (or a daytime freedom from pet noises) would face devil's choice. Peace and quiet or toxic air.
Following that reasoning, I'm now thinking that not doing the A/C return is NOT an option. Even without a formaldehyde laden door, rooms are filled with things that outgas, and it's best that there always be adequate ventilation. Shutting off adequate ventilation for noise reduction...no one should have to make that choice.
Given the A/C return, there is no good reason not to go for a fully sealed door, either this one or another. (Well, actually I did have a reason, not sure how good, that sometimes occupant would prefer to hear what's going on elsewhere in house. But I now think it's better to block the noise always, because an optional noise block just won't be done when it is most needed.)
One excellent fully sealed door option is the IsoDoor Basic from Sound Isolation Store. They have assured me tonight that it's made out of 100% douglas fir, no MDF at all. It comes with hugely effective seals so that the door achieves an STC of 29. While other doors in the Jeld Wen and TruStile catalog have higher ratings, those ratings are only achieved with a custom sealing job that neither doormaker actually provides. In other words, their ratings are theoretical, based on a configuration they won't actually sell you, whereas the Sound Isolation Store rating is what you actually get, the door was tested exactly as it is sold to you, seals and all, tested by an independent laboratory. I like that, as getting the seals right doesn't look easy and was in fact the thing that preoccupied me most of all (while I was forgetting the formaldehyde issue).
Here's a discussion of Douglas Fir vs Pine. Douglas Fir is better than pine, harder, though not as hard as a real hardwood.
If I bought another door, I could re-purpose QRD1 as the door for the laundry room. That way it would help block the noise from the washer and dryer, not an insignificant task, though it' hadn't been a priority, and it actually seems like a bit of a waste to have such a fancy door there. Another possible repurposing is as the new room from Gym to Garage. That door will need to be replaced when I remodel the Gym (the current door is ridiculous), and that door does in fact need to be a fire door, and sound absorbtion there is pretty important too.
Home Depot sells a pine door from Steves for $99. NOT prehung, and that might be a bit of a problem. I saw another door online for $99, and you could choose to have it prehung for $13 extra. These cheap doors worry me a bit.
Both Jeld-Wen and TruStile offer real wood doors. The Trustile doors are likely to be sufficiently expensive that I'd just get the Isodoor Basic instead. Plus, they use a laminate called VFL internally. It's not clear what kind of outgassing one would get from VFL. I suspect it would be a lot less than from an actual MDF door, however.
Jeld-Wen is a bit canny about their doors. They admit that the "Authentic Real Wood" doors have a partial MDF core. But they don't say that about the Custom Wood doors. I was told tonight that the Custom doors were more expensive.
Here is an interesting discussion of outgassing. While time is our friend wrt reducing outgassing, it doesn't work fast enough for MDF products. MDF products can be outgassing substantially for 20 years. They're only down about half in 5 years, so in 20 years they be down to about 10%.
The thought that this might not be right occurred to me several times in the specification and ordering process. But it got overshadowed by the knowledge that the two most affordable sound reducing doors are MDF and heavy gauge steel as in commercial fire doors (not flimsy builder store exterior doors), and MDF seemed more appropriate. Metal doors seem cold and not suitable inside a house. Only certain hardwoods would be as good, such as Hard Rock Maple, and who can afford a door made out of that?
But for health's sake, I'd sacrifice a few db of sound reduction.
So what are the options now?
I could try to make do with current door. This would require 2 things: coating the inside of the door to reduce outgassing inside the Queen's Room itself (polyurethane is said to be effective at blocking formaldehyde, and there are other blockers), and adding the A/C return register to the room. My key idea--that I would not need the return register because blocking the door undercut would not be the typical case--was wrong. The return register is needed as much or more for air quality as room temperature (this room will probably be one of the most comfortable in the house, due to recent room sealing and new window). A person choosing to block the undercut for a night's sleep (or a daytime freedom from pet noises) would face devil's choice. Peace and quiet or toxic air.
Following that reasoning, I'm now thinking that not doing the A/C return is NOT an option. Even without a formaldehyde laden door, rooms are filled with things that outgas, and it's best that there always be adequate ventilation. Shutting off adequate ventilation for noise reduction...no one should have to make that choice.
Given the A/C return, there is no good reason not to go for a fully sealed door, either this one or another. (Well, actually I did have a reason, not sure how good, that sometimes occupant would prefer to hear what's going on elsewhere in house. But I now think it's better to block the noise always, because an optional noise block just won't be done when it is most needed.)
One excellent fully sealed door option is the IsoDoor Basic from Sound Isolation Store. They have assured me tonight that it's made out of 100% douglas fir, no MDF at all. It comes with hugely effective seals so that the door achieves an STC of 29. While other doors in the Jeld Wen and TruStile catalog have higher ratings, those ratings are only achieved with a custom sealing job that neither doormaker actually provides. In other words, their ratings are theoretical, based on a configuration they won't actually sell you, whereas the Sound Isolation Store rating is what you actually get, the door was tested exactly as it is sold to you, seals and all, tested by an independent laboratory. I like that, as getting the seals right doesn't look easy and was in fact the thing that preoccupied me most of all (while I was forgetting the formaldehyde issue).
Here's a discussion of Douglas Fir vs Pine. Douglas Fir is better than pine, harder, though not as hard as a real hardwood.
If I bought another door, I could re-purpose QRD1 as the door for the laundry room. That way it would help block the noise from the washer and dryer, not an insignificant task, though it' hadn't been a priority, and it actually seems like a bit of a waste to have such a fancy door there. Another possible repurposing is as the new room from Gym to Garage. That door will need to be replaced when I remodel the Gym (the current door is ridiculous), and that door does in fact need to be a fire door, and sound absorbtion there is pretty important too.
Home Depot sells a pine door from Steves for $99. NOT prehung, and that might be a bit of a problem. I saw another door online for $99, and you could choose to have it prehung for $13 extra. These cheap doors worry me a bit.
Both Jeld-Wen and TruStile offer real wood doors. The Trustile doors are likely to be sufficiently expensive that I'd just get the Isodoor Basic instead. Plus, they use a laminate called VFL internally. It's not clear what kind of outgassing one would get from VFL. I suspect it would be a lot less than from an actual MDF door, however.
Jeld-Wen is a bit canny about their doors. They admit that the "Authentic Real Wood" doors have a partial MDF core. But they don't say that about the Custom Wood doors. I was told tonight that the Custom doors were more expensive.
Here is an interesting discussion of outgassing. While time is our friend wrt reducing outgassing, it doesn't work fast enough for MDF products. MDF products can be outgassing substantially for 20 years. They're only down about half in 5 years, so in 20 years they be down to about 10%.
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