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Before you buy...
Oriented Strand Board Sheathing
Related Product Advice
OSB is a layered, mat-formed panel product made of strands, flakes or wafers sliced from small diameter, round wood logs and bonded under heat and pressure. The creation of OSB utilizes quick growing trees that are converted to strips to utilize the cellular strength of the tree by maintaining its integrity as a long strand. These strands are then oriented, or set lengthwise, and pressed together with a binder.
OSB’s strength comes mainly from the uninterrupted wood fiber, interweaving of the long strands or wafers, and degree of orientation of strands in the surface layers. Waterproof and boil proof resin binders are combined with the strands to provide internal strength, rigidity and moisture resistance.
Fast growing trees, aspens for example, grow from root stock where each individual tree is actually a branch from the original tree. Therefore when a tree is felled it is not the end of the organism. The aspen simply shoots up another tree in the previous tree’s place and they grow at an incredible pace.
When buying OSB for indoor use, make certain it uses methyl diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) or phenol-formaldehyde as a binder as both of these are less toxic then urea-formaldehyde. Urea-formaldehyde is a product that is occasionally found in OSB and particle board and off-gasses significant amounts of formaldehyde, a known health hazard.
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Before you buy... Wool Carpet
Wool carpet is not only renewable and very durable, but some products are also low toxic and biodegradable. These are rare qualities in carpet considering most petrochemical-based carpets can include as many as 120 chemicals and be a primary source of indoor air quality problems. Natural wool is one of the most durable carpet materials, lasting 25 to 50 years.
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