At the present rate of innovation in the building materials industry, we may not be far away from a day when a tree will just be a pretty green thing that holds a swing.
A new contribution to the wood-free house is a line of interior doors introduced earlier this year by Masonite. The doors are made of a form of engineered lumber trade named DorCor™ which is made from compressed wheat straw. The doors look like any molded door and are available in both passage and bi-fold styles and come in heights up to 8’. The doors are Forest Stewardship Council certified and were recently named to the Top-10 Green Building Product list by BuildingGreen.com, a leading publisher in the building industry.
Wheat straw is rapidly renewable and while formaldehyde is used in most pressed wood products Masonite says it uses no Urea-Formaldehyde in manufacturing these doors. The company claims low formaldehyde emissions so may be using phenol resins rather than urea resins in its adhesives. The former is generally used in exterior applications because of the dark color of the resins but perhaps Masonite has found a way to deal with the cosmetic issue.
The manufacturer claims that the doors reduce sound transmission and they are Fire Rated at 20 minutes which makes them suitable for use as the door connecting house and garage in those areas where the code requires that rating.
The product was introduced in January and does not appear to have made its way to major home improvement centers and the company does not indicate any price points for the doors on its website. In fact, it isn’t even yet included in the company catalogues. An ordinary engineered wood Masonite door runs in the range of $20 to $40 so I would expect that the straw door would be near this price point.