FAQ

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Is wheat or any derivative used in the adhesives or manufacturing of your plywood?
At this time we do not include any wheat components in panels or adhesives. Over the years a few panel adhesives may have
included wheat flour as an extender and some panel products have been manufactured using post harvest grain stalk reduced to
fiber and bonded together to form a panel product resembling particle board. Also referred to as “agri-fiber,” this panel product
utilized an isocyonate adhesive to produce a non-wood, formaldehyde-free substrate option for decorative panel producers.
Columbia used to offer this product, but we had to discontinue it because that it is no longer being produced on a commercial
scale.
Is there any lead or mercury in your soy-based adhesive or wood?
No form of lead or mercury is added in the process of manufacturing or finishing our hardwood plywood. Any residual lead or
mercury in our wood, and the amount is infinitesimally small, would be naturally occurring and was absorbed with other
minerals from the air and soil.
Are there any VOCs in your soy-based adhesive or wood?
We utilize small amounts of acetone as a solvent in our patching material, which constitutes less than ½ % of the product by
weight, but almost all of that is immediately volatilized (or pass off as vapor), leaving only inconsequential levels remaining.
Wood naturally contains hundreds of extraneous and heterogeneous compounds in trace amounts. Some of these may be
volatilized at ambient conditions, while many others would be expected to volatilize only during thermal decomposition
(burning). These extraneous compounds are not introduced during the manufacturing process, and if they do exist, would be
through a natural process over which no manufacturer has legitimate control.
Can I use PureBond plywood as a sub-floor?
Our product is rated as a decorative and not structural panel. Just as with any wood product, our panels obviously have
structural properties, but because they are specifically designed for aesthetic applications where the beauty of the wood is to be
seen, we don’t recommend them for structural use or hidden beneath a floor. Most plywood sub-flooring is manufactured with
phenolic resins that, while they do utilize formaldehyde in their formulation, emit only minute traces of formaldehyde gas. The
emissions are so low, in fact that they are below all current standard limits.
I’d like to specify hardwood plywood as a decorative formaldehyde-free flooring treatment. What
do you recommend?
Columbia makes decorative hardwood plywood for furniture, cabinets and architectural millwork. While we have seen plywood
used as a floor system, we do not recommend, nor warrant the use of our plywood for this application. The decorative face
veneer of our plywood is much thinner than you will find in the “wear layer” of an engineered flooring system. And as such our
veneer face would likely wear-through in time.
Is your plywood insect (termite) resistant?
This comes up a lot, and while there may be chemically treated insect resistant wood for use in decorative products, we know of
none in common use. We have not done any testing, but typically wood products used indoors are not susceptible to insect
infestation from subterranean termites. Dry wood termite infestation and powder post beetle infestations are typically avoided
through commonly used household insect control measures.