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Flooring discounter Lumber Liquidators won’t be selling Chinese-made laminate anymore, and has agreed to continue an air-quality testing program for consumers.
Federal agencies, including the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, had been investigating the Toano, Virginia, company since early 2015, when the retailer was accused of selling laminate flooring that contained unsafe levels of formaldehyde.
The company had sold the flooring, which is made in China, to about 614,000 American consumers between 2011 and May 2015, when the company stopped sales of the laminate, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The commission announced this week that the company has agreed to stop selling the flooring, and will not sell or dispose of its remaining stock of 22 million feet of flooring without the agency’s approval. The company now sources its laminate flooring entirely from North America and Europe.
“The company also agreed to continue conducting a comprehensive testing program as part of a recall program that affects consumers who purchased Chinese-made laminate flooring from Lumber Liquidators during a three-year period,” the federal agency reports. “In homes where the Chinese-made laminate flooring is found to emit elevated levels of formaldehyde, the company will provide any required remediation.”
As part of its investigation, which was independent of the flooring discounter’s testing program, the Consumer Product Safety Commission bought and tested samples of the flooring.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention evaluated the test results and concluded that the flooring could decrease air quality where it was installed, potentially causing breathing problems in people and increasing cancer risks.
The company has already tested the air quality in more than 17,000 houses and tested about 1,300 consumers’ floors without finding levels of formaldehyde that requires any remediation, the Consumer Product Safety Commission reports.
For more coverage, read the following stories:
March 24: Lumber Liquidators to Pay $2.5M, Pioneer Flooring Testing Program
May 14, 2015: Financial Problems Piling Up for Lumber Liquidators
April 21, 2015: Lumber Liquidators Hit With Class-Action Lawsuits
March 23, 2015: Federal Organizations Investigate Lumber Liquidators Flooring
March 3, 2015: Lumber Liquidators Responds to ’60 Minutes’ Report
