A door defines a room, as entry and exit; it is both introduction and conclusion to a space. A door exists for purposes of privacy, sound insulation, heat, and airflow. Doors lead us to new discoveries and are integral to the “flow” of a home. The perfect door can be an elegant way to express the unique personality of your home.
There are a number of crucial decisions to make when choosing an interior door: Hinged or pocket? Hollow-core or solid-core? Will it be painted or stained? Does it fit with the period of the house? And a question that is becoming more and more important: is it a sustainable choice?
Of course, the most sustainable choice is to reuse an existing door. Visit estate sales and reclaimed building material centers that offer salvaged doors, and then you’ve recycled in the purest sense of the word. However, it can be a time-consuming and sometime fruitless search if you are trying to find a unique design, an off size, or a particular style, or if you need to match new wood trim or other home accents.
The least expensive interior door solution is a hollow core door; these are mass-produced and constructed of plywood. In terms of sound retention, insulation, and fire resistance, hollow core doors rate poorly in all categories. In addition, plywood frequently uses formaldehyde glue in construction. Formaldehyde fumes (a known carcinogen) are hazardous to humans when inhaled. If you choose a door made of plywood, be sure to look for one with “no added formaldehyde,” or to paint the door prior to installation with a paint that guarantees your interior air quality by sealing the fumes in. One example of paint that can be used for this purpose is AFM Safecoat, a paint designed to reduce “offgassing.”
For those in search of high quality interior doors that can be custom built, the traditional choice has been solid wood doors. Solid wood doors are more expensive, but they are also beautiful, offer a custom look, a rich “feel factor,” and wonderful sound retention properties. However, the quality of wood necessary for an interior door frequently entails harvesting old growth trees.
A Sustainable Solution
If you desire the look and feel of a solid wood door, environmentally responsible options do exist. The most sustainable doors being built in North America are Humabuilt doors, constructed using 85% rapidly renewable resources by volume. Employing a wheat core laminated with A-Grade Select plain-sliced veneers, these doors eliminate splitting and warping, minimize expansion and contraction, and insure dimensional stability. Humabuilt uses ultra-low VOC adhesives and creates doors in a wide variety of designs, sizes, wood species, and glass panels. They are the choice of architects seeking LEED certification for commercial projects, but they are also available to homeowners.
Until recently, Humabuilt doors were only available factory direct. They are now on display and available for purchase at Ecohaus Supplies, in Portland, OR.
