Are All Trailers Toxic?

by KMS Woodworks for Networx

It’s been a few years now after hurricane Katrina wrecked havoc along the Gulf Coast, but some lingering concerns are still alive. FEMA, in their efforts to provide temporary housing, purchased over 2.5 billion dollars worth of travel trailers and mobile homes. These trailers were quickly built and put into service. Later, after some time in these “temporary” structures, some people began to experience some ill-heath effects. Air quality monitoring found that elevated levels of formaldehyde were present in some of these trailers.

The media and public quickly bashed FEMA for supplying the displaced with “toxic tin-cans,” and these trailers have been sold off to various buyers at a value of about 7 cents on the dollar. Was it wrong to use trailers…which were portable, quick to provide, and relatively cheap? That’s a question that may never be answered and it’s a situation that may happen again. Agency spokesman Aaron Walker said, “FEMA stands confident in using travel trailers for emergency sheltering, …. To put it in perspective, we have almost 115,000 trailers out right now, and FEMA has received just over 20 complaints total.”

Are all trailers toxic?

The formaldehyde that was found in these trailers is an off-gassed by-product that is present in many homes. Plywood, OSB, carpeting, foam and hundreds of other products contain or release formaldehyde. Trailers often use more of these products, proportionally, than stick built homes. Thin plywood and laminates are lightweight, and therefore, widely used in the RV industry. If RV’s and trailers used conventional building materials like drywall, ceramic tile and solid hardwood flooring the “home” as an “end product” would be prohibitively heavy and not easy to pull behind your average car or SUV.

Trailers and RV’s are also typically used as part time residences, rather that full time dwellings, so the accumulative effects of chemical exposure is reduced. Public perception of a huge wrong committed by FEMA for using these trailers was largely to blame for the “fire-sale” that put many of these trailers back into the open market. When used as designed, trailers pose no serious health risk due to adverse chemical exposure. Each year the RV industry turns out over 300,000 units and the 140,000 or so that FEMA purchased after Katrina will eventually be intermixed with past and future supply. It is estimated that a trailer will often see 10 to 15 owners in its lifetime.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Linus S.

3:33PM PST on Jan 2, 2011

great article, now I really got something to think of

send a green star

donna c.

4:36PM PST on Jan 1, 2011

thanks

Danuta W.

2:34AM PST on Dec 26, 2010

This is great article

2:33AM PST on Dec 26, 2010

Marianna B M.

1:56AM PST on Dec 21, 2010

noted

Inari T.

10:57PM PST on Dec 20, 2010

I guess it's a kind of "Catch-22", isn't it? They were trying to provide emergency housing for large numbers of people as quickly as possible; and as others have mentioned, a lot of new materials give off unpleasant fumes when they're first installed.

moggy w.

10:25PM PST on Dec 20, 2010

The article asks, can better trailers be built?- of course they can, If the builders were building them for their friends and family, you bet they would be better. But it's usually poor people who live in them, and only because of their use due to Katrina on a large scale, did anyone question the inherent unhealthiness of the materials.

Rebecca S.

12:25PM PST on Dec 20, 2010

I think as an emergency shelter, they did make the right choice in supplying these. Because it was either these cheaper trailers, or quite possibly no home at all.

Kathleen D.

10:59AM PST on Dec 20, 2010

It is absolutely horrific that as wealthy, industrialized nation, we are producing toxic materials for human consumption and use. I am damned mad that any person (I could care less what the emergency) is being harmed by products that are known to be hazardous materials. The very fact that humans are becoming ill or developing diseases that will kill them because our government can't get it's act together is, unthinkable.

Ernie M.

6:37AM PST on Dec 20, 2010

in so many places there are laws agains building small but you may build as big as you want. One way to get around them laws it to build big covered porches all around the houses to you have the Sq ft under roof they require. it also allows you to have a place in the shade to rest in a hot summer day bad news is you lose the solar gain in winter!