RE: [GBlist] "Green" kitchen cabs

[Sandra Leibowitz <sleibowitz@earthlink.net>]

I think the point here is that using "wheatboard" (by which, I assume most people mean the
Isobord brand of straw fiberboard as it has been the most widely available) means building
custom cabinetry which, in my world, is an out-of-the question issue for affordable housing.  I
have not even seen this done on market-rate apartments or condos.

Urea-formaldehyde-free composite board products is one of 4 points available under the LEED
"Low-Emitting Materials" Credit.  For residential projects there's always cabinets and
countertops to worry about and, as far as I've seen, there are no off-the-shelf unit cabinets
made from urea-formaldehyde-free materials--I'd love to be corrected if I'm wrong about that.

What's out there now that I know of (without going custom) are:

   * Built-to-order cabinets from Neil Kelly Signature Cabinets "Naturals Collection"
     http://www.neilkelly.com/cabinets/index.htm made with wheatboard (which you are not likely
     to use for affordable housing, especially if you have to ship it from the West Coast to
     the East!).
   * Low-urea-formaldehyde content (ie-European standards which are 6 times stricter than ours)
     wood-fiber "frameless" cabinets from IKEA, which is what I have and which has definite
     space-usage advantages over North American "framed" cabinet construction anyway.

> From: Brenda Norman <bnorman@ceiarchitecture.com>
> Wheatboard is not prohibitively expensive.  When bought in individual
> sheets, wheatboard (isobord) is slightly more expensive than K3 ($20 vs
> $18.50CAN) and less expensive than medite ($27CAN), when bought by the
> pallet it is ~ 20% less expensive than K3 (as per Goodfellows Inc.).

> -----Original Message-----
> From:   Ralph Bicknese [SMTP:ralph.bicknese@christnerinc.com]
> The cost of wheat board tends to be prohibitive for low budget projects.


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