Trying to eliminate formaldehyde gas as a potential cause for some medical issues I've been experiencing.
I've been having acute idiopathic breathing difficulty and other strange symptoms for months since moving into a rental home while shopping for a home to purchase in neighboring areas. My wife is now experiencing similar breathing difficulty and fatigue… We've recently been consulting with several medical professionals and ENT/pulmonary specialists trying to pinpoint an environmental and/or dietary cause for the gradual onset of worsening symptoms we've been experiencing with little success (outside of possible adult onset anxiety disorders that have sprung up out of nowhere, which is a simple exclusionary hypothesis now being discussed at length with professionals).
Long story short, I have an engineering background and I'm uncomfortable throwing my hands up in the air and accepting the exclusionary diagnosis that both of our recent health conditions are contrived and mental when anyone who knows us would say we're both fundamentally averse to emotional drama of any kind.
With that said, this question is prompted by a breaking story my attending physician emailed to me yesterday as the following news broke:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=60+minutes+lumber+liquidators
I have located the recently installed laminate wood flooring that's installed in our rental home on the LL web site and I'd like to know if there's a clever way to test it for formaldehyde off-gassing. The home kits available on Amazon have few reviews and are running for $100+ for each – there has to be a better way… Thanks guys.
Best Answer
$100 for a test kit doesn't seem so bad. Sure it's not as cheap as a radon test kit, but it's a much more specialty item.
I would get one and see what it says, then go from there.
(Looking up that Lumber Liquidaters thing it's not clear to me whether the lumber in question is actually dangerous or just mislabeled. Also, off-gassing is generally worst in the first few months... was any of the flooring installed recently?)