Question from Christine

We have a wall-to-wall carpet in our house that was installed about 10 years ago (we’ve been living here 3). We want to replace it, and have realized how bad wall-to-wall carpeting is. The other half of the floor is pergo. I don’t want to replace the pergo, and therefore it seems it makes most sense to replace the carpeting with more pergo and use non-toxic area rugs. My question is, is the pergo really bad? It has to be better than the wall-to-wall carpet, right? I just think it would look weird if I put a different wood-flooring on half of the house.

The other thing is, I am planning to pregnant soon, so I wanted to do this first. Should I wait a while (how long) after having the new pergo installed to have minimal toxins?

Thanks so much for your help.

Debra’s Answer

I don’t recommend Pergo flooring because I got their MSDS sheet and it says it outgasses formaldehyde. That said, I understand your design dilemma.

In response to another question about laminate floors, I contacted AFM Enterprises to see which of their sealants would be appropriate to use on a laminate floor. They said, “Safecoat Polyureseal BP over a sanded lamninate has been successfully done. Poly Bp is a good emissions controller.” I wanted to make sure that the sealant would stick to that laminate finish. Make sure to sand the laminate flooring first, taking care to contain the dust, which would be full of plastic particles. This may work on Pergo. I’d get a piece and try it before installing a whole floorful.

If you are going to do this, definately do it before your pregnancy. How long to wait? I don’t know how long it takes for Pergo to outgass, but regardless, you can speed up the process by applying heat. Just close the doors and windows and heat up the room, and much of the residual formaldehyde will just burn off. Heat it longer (like several days) to get more of the formaldehyde trapped in the wood to outgass.

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