Safe, Green Low VOC Polyurethane | Vermont Natural Coatings

Posted September 3, 2009 23:48 by Robert

Tags: gren polyurethane, low-voc

Green Polyurethane sounds like an oxymoron, however we found a great product called Polywhey from Vermont Natural Coatings (VNC) to use on the hardwood floors. With the floors now stained, the floor guys starting putting down the first coat of polyurethane yesterday. After seeing a lot of new houses, I am used to the horrible and pretty toxic smell that accompanies that shiny new floor look. Typically it lingers for weeks after the floors are done and is not something that you want your family to breath.  The folks at Vermont Natural coatings have made what they call a PolyWhey, a water based polyurethane. The product is pretty much odor free, dries in a few hours and is made from a renewable resource which is a byproduct of Vermont cheese manufacturing that would otherwise be discarded. As a result, it does not contain imported crude oil, is very durable and has indoor VOC levels below 180g/L, which exceeds the toughest standards in the U.S.   

The floor guys and our GC were pretty shocked at how little the product smelled, it had less odor going on than most polyurethane’s would a week later. As promised, it also dried in about 2 hours and the semi- gloss finish that we used isn’t too shiny; we were trying to avoid that bowling alley look. Polywhey qualifies for LEED credits and can be found locally at Terenne or nationally at paint, hardware and green building supply stores. It’s really a great product which offers both health and environmental benefits with no major sacrifices. It can also be used by any floor installer without new training which is often a challenge with newer products.

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