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With Nathan Bryant of Samsel Architects as architect and Traci Kearns of Alchemy Design as interior designer, this home was crafted to incorporate sustainable cabinetry. TODD CRAWFORD PHOTO
Is there soy in your cabinet? Seeking sustainable casework and millwork BY JOE ARCHIBALD hen it comes to choosing casework and millwork for a project, often the choice comes down solely to cost. This can lead to casework with a limited lifespan, made of poor quality materials that off-gas formaldehyde and other chemicals. Thankfully, there are many options for sustainably produced products and materials. To identify these products, often all that is required is to ask some simple questions of your casework or millwork supplier: What percentage of recycled content panel product do you use? What about water-based catalyzed lacquer? And how about your internal recycling program? Let’s consider a standard set of kitchen cabinets, exploring the design and materials to see where opportunities exist to make sustainable choices.
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Construction style There are two basic cabinet construction methods: traditional face frame and frameless or European. In frameless cabinets, the wood
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face frame is eliminated and the edge of the cabinet box is banded with one of several different types of thin (0.5mm to 3mm) edgebanding material — either PVC (polyvinyl chloride), ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), solid wood or wood veneer. Any style of door and drawer front can be used, and most frameless cabinets look nothing like the sleek modern designs the name might imply. This construction method maximizes the space within the actual cabinet box, making more with less, and eliminates several board feet of lumber required to make the face frame. Choosing frameless cabinet construction is a good start. For the edgebanding itself, ABS is preferred over PVC in greenbuilding terms, however it is used less frequently and available in fewer colors than PVC. Ask your supplier to source ABS edgebanding if the option exists, as the major manufacturers of edgebanding are bringing more products to the market. The wood or wood veneer option is the best choice, offering the ability to exactly match wood
doors and drawer fronts or be painted to match the cabinet fronts if required.
Panel Products Hardwood plywood panels are a superior choice for all casework projects. Typically using a birch or poplar core, hardwood plywood is available with many different wood species as the face (exposed) veneer surface. Prefinished panels are available with a UV (ultraviolet light-cured) coating that provides excellent durability and easy cleaning of the cabinet interiors while eliminating the hassle and potential off-gassing associated with other on-site or shopbased finishing methods. Hardwood plywood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) can also be sourced, though wood species choices may be limited and cost can be 20 to 30 percent higher than non-FSC panels. One hardwood plywood product worthy of direct mention is Columbia Forest Products PureBond, which uses a unique soy-based glue in the manufacturing process to eliminate off-gassing and provides great sustainability benefits
due to its natural-based composition. Columbia has a local manufacturing plant in Old Fort, allowing for material sourced within a 100mile radius. (Their UV-finished products come from Chatham, Virginia, though that is still within the generally accepted 500-mile radius for material sourcing.) Hardwood plywood offers higher strength and greater longevity than other products, providing an improved life-cycle cost assessment. Medium-density fiberboard, known simply as MDF, is a panel product composed of glue and wood fiber. MDF’s low cost, stability (less likely to warp or twist), and smooth finishing ability make it a popular choice for painted casework and millwork as well as a substrate for laminates and veneer work. MDF can be sourced with non-UF (urea formaldehyde) glues and is also available with FSC-certification. Again costs are higher — approximately 15-25 percent more than standard MDF, depending on the panel manufacturer. Alternatives are also available. Bamboo plywood is one that offers the ability to have a structural
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