Looking for good quality No Voc/No formaldehyde kitchen cabients

jcks2000

9 years ago

Hello all,

We have been wanting to do our kitchen since we moved in 3 years ago, but have been having hard time finding/deciding on a good-quality kitchen cabinets with No/Low VOC and formaldehyde. The contractors we have interviewed suggested Wellborn, Crestwood, and Bishop. Any ideas of the quality of the cabinetry? We'd like it to last more than just 20 years. The size of our kitchen is roughtly 13x10.

Thanks so much!

Featured Answer

jakuvall

9 years ago

Most brands nowadays are CARB 2 certified and if they are they will list that on their website. Any CARB 2 certified brand will be low formaldehyde and low VOC, low enough for the majority of the population to be comfortable.

A fair number of brands also offer (only Crestwood of those you have listed) NAUF- no added urea formaldehyde. Upcharges for NAUF vary wildly. Some hi end brands only use NAUF.

No VOC, No HAP- is more difficult. To my knowledge the only way to get no VOC is with waterborne finishes or a very specific oil finish.

Waterborne finishes tend to be less durable than other film finishes. They will be ZERO VOC but not ZERO HAP (and many of the chemicals used in them do not fall under any regulation). If you are dealing with a chemical sensitivity issue that is severe then it may be the way to go. But you may wish to get the MSDS for the finish. The most common HAP in waterbornes are isocyanates .

The only zero VOC and zero HAP finish that I know of is an oil finish available from QCCI (a luxury$$ brand, all NAUF, that I carry). They call it PURE. I've accessed the MSDS for it and it is zero HAP and zero VOC.
The "Pure" oil finish comes in a very limited range of colors for each wood that they offer it on (some combinations of color and wood simply don't work). I've only done one kitchen in that to date.
Again- if dealing with chemical sensitivity OR you like the look AND have the budget this is a good option.

A useful discussion of chemicals and certifications can be found at Merit cabinets (who I don't carry and know nothing about first hand) link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Eco Friendly Options

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Comments (9)

dcward89
9 years ago
Take a look at Barker Cabinets. They are RTA but super easy to put together. Debinitely formaldehyde free, not sure about VOC's. The quality of their materials is one of the main reasons we used them. Could not be happier!
User
9 years ago
Look for companies thar are Green Guard certified by the KCMA. That will be as good as you get at a reasonable price. If you want to pay double to double +, some lines, like Henrybuilt have upgrades available. You're talking 50-75K for cabinets for an average kitchen though rather than 15-30K .
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jcks2000
Original Author
9 years ago
Thanks for the suggestions and ideas!

dcward89 - Barker cabinets look interesting. Do they ship assembled, or you or the contractors have to assemble them? Is that complicated then? If you don't mind asking, how big is your kitchen, and how much (approx) did you spend on them?

Thanks so much!
dcward89
9 years ago
They ship in flat packs and you or your contractor have to assemble them but they are super easy to assemble and are really high quality. Our kitchen is 11x15 and we spent $10,500 on the cabinets. That included a floor-ceiling pantry with roll-outs, all drawers on the bottom, a full refrigerator enclosure cabinet, large sink cabinet, two corner lazy susan cabinets...high quality, USA made Blum hardware...soft close...all the end panels, crown molding, toe kick covers, scribe molding...pretty much everything we needed. I mention those specific things because they seem to be what drives the cost up. We really could not be happier with our cabinets.
jcks2000
Original Author
9 years ago
dcward89 - Thanks for the info. Barker sounds like a great deal compared to others that we have looked at. I assumed that we or the contractor we hired have to the kitchen designs layout then?

Jakuvall - Thanks so much for the info, it is exactly the kind of info. I was looking for! There is such huge wealth of information out there, and it is hard to decipher all the jargon sometimes. The QCCI sounds like a great cabinetry meeting our standards. Where are you located? How much would you say the cost for the QCCI cabinets for a 13x10 kitchen?

Thanks so much to all the comments/suggestions!
User
9 years ago
Asking how much cabinets cost for a particular sized space is like asking how much is a blue car! ;) You would need to have an actual design to compare apples to apples pricing. But, given your original parameters, I doubt whether you'll be happy with Barker. They have a fine product. They just don't meet your requirements. Your requirements put you solidly into a pretty high priced bracket. How high a price depends entirely on the amount of cabinetry in that space, and the details of the design. The "same" design for the same space can vary by more than triple, while looking almost exactly the same superficially.
jakuvall
9 years ago
As LWO says there is no good way to guess but to get you into the ballpark...

Typical for what I see nowadays-
A highly functional, nicely detailed, fully customized 10 x 13 "L" without an island, in most any wood species - QCCI would be in the 22-28k range. Make it a "U" and you can approach 40k. (Depending on door style and dealer markup) Frameless runs a little less than framed inset. Adding lots of extra decorative details, carvings, heavy molding, distressing, .... all would add to the cost-quickly.

If that is in your budget then best to speak with a dealer near you.
jcks2000
Original Author
9 years ago
Jakuvall - Thanks so much for all the great info. The QCCI sounds like a great cabinetry, but is a bit higher than what we'd like to spend. Crestwood may be the way to go then since the local dealer told us they have a variety of stains to choose from, and we usually like the natural look of the wood anyway (likely to choose maple), and not planning on staining it darker.

Any other brand you'd recommend that are similar to Crestwood in quality and voc/formaldehyde requirements?

Thanks to all who have provided great info.!