If you buy a new or nearly new RV, you may find yourself troubled by formaldehyde gas. Found in items such as plywood, particle board, and other pressed wood products that are commonly used to make furniture, cabinets, wall paneling, shelves, and counter tops, its use is not uncommon in the industry.
As these products age, they "off gas" and the smell of formaldehyde can be objectionable, and to some, the gas itself can be dangerous, causing anywhere from irritated, watery, burning eyes to difficulty in breathing. Some associate formaldehyde gas exposure with possible problems with cancer. What's to do to rid your RV of this noxious gas?
A couple of schools of thought exist: When folks had trouble with formaldehyde in FEMA provided trailers during Hurricane Katrina, they were advised to increase ventilation. Yes, opening windows and vents will help to ventilate your rig, but that's not always practical, particularly in cold weather.
Another method is to "cook" the formaldehyde out. By heating up your RV, the building materials that contain formaldehyde are encouraged to off-gas at a faster rate; then by ventilating the gas by completely airing out the rig, some have reported success. Here's one way to do this:
Open all cabinet doors and drawers. Since furniture may contain formaldehyde, set up cushions so as to have the greatest exposure to open air. Leaving outside doors, windows, and vents OPEN, turn the rig's thermostat up to the highest level. Some even add an additional heat source like a portable heater--but USE CAUTION so as not to ignite anything with the heater, nor bring danger on yourself with an overloaded electrical cord or circuit.
Leave the rig closed up with the heat on overnight. Next day, open outside doors, windows, and roof vents. Turn on any vent fans, and consider using additional fans to draw the fumes out of the rig. Ventilate for several hours. Repeat the heat/vent process until you have "cooked" the formaldehyde out of the rig--which could take several days.
An alternative plan is to convert the formaldehyde gas into a harmless compound through a chemical reaction with ammonia gas. We haven't heard of this one before, but it may be worth a try. The theory works this way: formaldehyde and ammonia are similar in their chemical makeup. When these two gasses are combined, the resulting product is water and a harmless compound called an imine.
In practice, place open containers (bowls or pans) of household ammonia into a closed RV and leave them unattended for three days. One web site claims this will effectively neutralize the formaldehyde gas. They recommend the use of lemon scented ammonia--probably for reasons pleasing to the nose. Whether it would work to try the "cooking" process at the same time isn't clear.
Happily, the RV industry is shying away from the use of formaldehyde containing products. Eventually this might no longer be an issue we need to worry about.
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