No Rest For The Weary
CBS News asks: Are FEMA Trailers Making Residents Sick? Answer: of course. Anyone who has ever owned a travel trailer could have told them that after a week you need to find some place else to be.
The culprit is very well known: formaldehyde.
Most formaldehyde is used in the production of polymers and other chemicals. When combined with phenol, urea, or melamine, formaldehyde produces a hard thermoset resin. These resins are commonly used in permanent adhesives, such as those used in plywood or carpeting. It is used as the wet-strength resin added to sanitary paper products such as (listed in increasing concentrations injected into the paper machine headstock chest) facial tissue, table napkins, and roll towels. They are also foamed to make insulation, or cast into molded products. Production of formaldehyde resins accounts for more than half of formaldehyde consumption.
The problem is that these trailers were designed for occasional use for limited periods and the sealing that takes place in regular construction, doesn’t take place in travel trailers. OSB [oriented strand board / chip board] is replacing plywood as sheathing and it has even more resin than plywood. Normally it is used on the exterior and the fumes vent to the outside. When it is used for the subflooring it is capped by something else to exclude the fumes. Those techniques are not used in travel trailers, and there is little in the way of cross ventilation to exhaust the fumes.
The huge order for trailers after Katrina meant that the OSB had less curing time than normal, and therefore more fumes. The need for air conditioning means the trailers aren’t aired, but are sealed up recirculating the air inside. There is nothing unknown here.
4 comments
…I actually started wondering about this a couple of years ago when the widespread use of FEMA travel trailers became noticable. I bought my camp trailer back in ’94 and the subject of formaldehyde toxicity from long-term exposure in travel trailers was becoming a matter of discussion not long after that…
You can do a reasonable job of sealing them, but when you put carpet over raw OSB you are magnifying the effect, not reducing it. You really have to air out new construction, seal openings, and pay attention to clean-up. A lot of the short-cuts once used, can’t be used anymore. Because of the humidity I generally prime all new wood, even studs, and especially OSB, because the stuff turns to mush if it gets wet.
Anyone who plans to camp or live in an RV for any amount of time needs to have heavy-duty roof fans and torque windows for venting.
A lot of those odors are due to sitting in the sun, shut up tight as a drum.
If they were stored for any length of time you need to be ready with the Clorox and Lysol, because the mold and mildew will take over in no time.
Keeping people in travel trailers is just a bad idea. You can build small houses for less that the cost of trailers. And if you build them right, they can be moved.