But while stains and finishes are real game changers for your wine cellar project, we should also be aware of the fact that they are not exactly the safest products out there. This is particularly the case for oil-based ones. Indeed, oil-based stains are ironically the more well-known products despite so many disadvantages to using them. These disadvantages have mostly to do with the health and environmental effects of these products. Let’s discuss them in better detail.
First off, it should be noted that stains in general contain VOCs or Volatile Organic Compounds. VOCs typically combine with nitrogen oxides in the air to form ozone. Some of these VOCs are carcinogenic or neurotoxic. The health effects of exposure to VOCs vary greatly by the type of chemical and the concentration. For example, exposure to high levels of VOCs, especially those that are neurotoxic, can cause headaches, nausea, tremors or seizures, difficulty of breathing, or even death in humans. Oil-based stains usually have 6 times the VOCs of water-based ones.
In addition, oil-based stains dry or cure really slowly. Plus, they are actually fire hazards. Cleaning them up is also a very tedious task because there are actually laws governing how they should be disposed to avoid their toxic effects from spreading. That’s because you generally need paint thinner or other similar potent solvent to remove these stains.
This now brings us to the “other” type of stain – the water-based one. Because the actual finish is suspended in the water and not “thinned” by it, this type of stain has limited VOC. That means it’s a lot safer health and environment-wise and there is very low or virtually no fire hazard. Water-borne products are largely composed of water so their dry time is a fraction of that of oil-based products. Basically, multiple coats can be applied in the same time it would take a single coat of oil-base product to dry. It also helps a lot that water-based stains are odor-free and their clean-up is a breeze: just use soap and water!
WCI is very proud to let everyone know that we’ve always used water-based stains and finishes in all our racking products. We have proactively worked in conjunction with the EPA to eliminate all solvent based stains and finishes in our manufacturing processes.
https://www.winecellarinnovations.com/blog/2016/07/25/water-based-stains/
Wood stain can take a drab piece of wood and give it depth, enhanced grain appearance, tone and color – and it’s a method that’s been used by woodworkers for hundreds of years. Originally, wood stain was made from rather simple things – like letting a rusty nail soak in vinegar to make a brown stain. These days, the ingredient lists are more complicated and often include toxic chemicals that pose risks to your health. And that’s exactly why you should use non-toxic* wood stain. Here’s what you need to know:
Wood stains are composed of three main components: dye or pigment, solvents, and binders. Dyes penetrate the wood while pigments, like those in paints, sit on top of the wood. Solvents keep the colorants and binder in liquid form and once they are applied, the solvents evaporate. The binder holds the colorant in place.
The Green Home Guide outlines the environmental and health risks associated the chemicals conventional wood stains contain:
Environmental impacts of stain manufacturing and use vary. Petroleum-derived solvents are particularly damaging: extraction and shipping of petroleum, followed by its processing and manufacturing into solvents and chemicals, requires large amounts of energy. Acrylic and urethane stains contain the highest amounts of petroleum-derived solvents, followed by natural oil stains and then water-based stains, which contain the least.
As a stain dries and its solvents evaporate, it releases VOC's which contribute to air pollution and can cause health problems. When considering the VOC content of any product, keep in mind that regulatory standards for VOC content are intended to reduce emissions of VOCs that cause smog, not to improve indoor air quality. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found that indoor concentrations of VOCs are regularly up to ten times as high as outdoor concentrations, and as much as a thousand times as high when you are applying stains.
Beyond VOCs, many stains are made with toxic substances that come from nonrenewable resources or are energy-intensive or polluting to produce, so even low-VOC stains can have an impact on the environment. For example, water-based stains may use toxic glycol ether as a solvent, and any stain could use toxic or heavily manufactured pigments such as copper-based Paris green, which is poisonous, rather than renewable or abundant pigments such as tannins derived from wood or minerals like iron oxide.
http://www.ecospaints.net/blog/2015/07/why-you-should-use-non-toxic-wood-stain/