Recently, with the frequent occurrence of environmental problems in furniture and building materials, decoration pollution has once again become the focus of public opinion. When the integrity of merchants is questioned, many consumers begin to rely on "environmental testing" and hope to protect their rights and interests by legal means. But what can "indoor environmental testing" actually measure? Under what circumstances is it suitable for testing? Is the testing cost high or not? Consumers have many doubts about this.

You don't know

As we all know, the qualified boards of furniture do not mean that the furniture produced after superposition, bonding, painting and other processes is also environmentally friendly. Since there is currently no testing standard suitable for whole furniture in our country, how should consumers protect their rights if the furniture bought home smells great?

Expert advice

1. Odor pollution and chemical pollution are not necessarily equivalent. Good indoor environmental quality is based on the premise of "no toxicity, no harm and no abnormal smell". If the furniture bought feels bad smell, although it is not necessarily formaldehyde or volatile organic compounds, it can definitely have negative effects on indoor environmental quality. No further tests are needed. Instead, the furniture should be returned directly to the manufacturer. Regular brands will perform corresponding responsibilities.

2. If you meet "serious" merchants, you can use environmental detection to help solve the problem. The premise is that under the same space conditions and the normal use of furniture, the indoor environment values of a piece of furniture with and without two conditions are measured respectively, and the comparison values are used to speak. When using this method, it is better to have businessmen on site.

Can indoor environmental testing be used to test furniture?

The quality of a piece of furniture depends on the material, process and post-treatment. referring to the "limited standard for harmful substances in interior decoration materials", the current national safety standard only stipulates for ten kinds of building materials such as wood-based panels, coatings, adhesives, etc. there is no clear indicator requirement for furniture, so even testing is difficult to be used as the basis for product return.

In addition, if the same piece of furniture is placed in a space of 10 square meters and a space of 50 square meters, the measured pollution values are obviously different, which is also related to the room orientation and ventilation, so the detection may not reflect the real situation. Some people once proposed to test the pollutant release of furniture in a standard environment bin, thus drawing up a testing standard. However, it is very difficult to quantify the standard because each piece of furniture is different in size, material and technology.

Under what circumstances is it suitable for indoor environmental testing?

Indoor environmental testing is mainly used in the decoration acceptance stage. For the owner of his own decoration, even if he guarantees that the furniture he bought is environment-friendly and nontoxic, all furniture pollutants accumulated together will inevitably exceed the normal value. In this case, he can know the environmental quality after decoration through testing, decide when to move in and whether improvement measures are needed.

For owners who have bought hardcover houses, it is also necessary to carry out secondary tests. Although the developer will provide the indoor environment test report of the project when the house is delivered, the first thing the developer provides is a random inspection report, which cannot explain the specific situation of each house. Secondly, the developer's test is aimed at the project acceptance, which may be done at the blank housing stage rather than after hardcover, and the results will be different; In addition, according to the project acceptance standard of "Pollution Control Code for Civil Building Engineering", the test is carried out one hour after indoor closure, while the national indoor air standard requires the test to be carried out 12 hours after indoor closure, so the secondary test can find the problem in time.

What are the qualifications and charges for indoor environmental testing?

At present, there are dozens of indoor environmental testing institutions in Beijing, all of which can be found on the websites of the State Quality Supervision Bureau or the Beijing Quality Supervision Bureau. Only the testing reports issued by testing institutions that have passed the national laboratory measurement certification have legal basis. The simplest identification method is to have CMA (China Measurement Certification) mark on the upper left corner of the testing reports.

Generally speaking, indoor environmental testing mainly tests formaldehyde, benzene, volatile organic compounds, ammonia and radioactive element radon. The surveyors will determine the detection points according to the room area. The more detection points, the higher the cost. Although there is no uniform charging standard in the country at present, the industry generally charges about 300 yuan for a project, and the cost of detecting a 100 square meter house is about the same as that of 1000 yuan.

TIPS

How to Reduce Decoration Pollution

Reduce carpentry

Try not to let workers do carpentry work at the decoration site. Generally carpenters will use large core boards or density boards as materials. Quality and environmental protection are difficult to guarantee and even affect the quality of secondary decoration. If you want to customize furniture, you'd better ask the furniture manufacturer to measure it on the spot. Furniture is produced in the factory.

Pursuing Simplicity

The more materials you use for decoration, the more pollutants you accumulate, and the more likely you are to cause decoration pollution. Therefore, when decorating, try to pursue simplicity.

Identify plate

Although the formaldehyde content of wood-based panel furniture is high, most of the panel furniture on the market are of excellent quality because the country has strict inspection standards for panels. But now many solid wood composite furniture, under the signboard of solid wood, use plate as core material and do not produce according to the standard of plate. Consumers should be careful when purchasing such furniture.

Reasonable collocation

Decoration materials should be reasonably matched. Take the floor materials with the largest use area as an example, the reinforced floor will release formaldehyde. The surface of solid wood floor contains volatile organic compounds, and ceramic tiles have certain radioactivity. Therefore, designers try to match solid wood, reinforced floor and ceramic tiles. For example, the living room will choose durable reinforced floor, the bedroom will choose comfortable solid wood floor, and the kitchen and toilet will choose clean ceramic tiles, which not only conform to the characteristics of the material itself, but also are environmentally friendly and healthy.

auxiliary equipment

The air purifier can adsorb, decompose or convert various air pollutants, including decoration pollution such as dust, pollen, peculiar smell and formaldehyde. You can also put more green plants with purifying effect. Aloe, Chlorophytum comosum, Humphrey orchid, and Bambusa japonica are natural scavengers with super-strong ability to absorb formaldehyde.

Reasonable ventilation

When the room temperature is below 15℃, the amount of pollutants released is very small, so you can choose to close the doors and windows first to turn the air conditioner to a higher temperature, and when the pollutants are released to saturation, open the window for ventilation to discharge the pollutants.