avoid paperboard paneling

[Mountain Gnome]

I have a couple pieces of old-school wood paneling, but not enough for the complete interior of my bus. They don't seem to make this stuff anymore. I was planning on using this as cabinet doors for the hanging shelves above my bed and the under-bed storage. I found some paperboard panels (4'×8') with a "picture" of wood paneling laminated to one side. It basically matches the look and color of my old paneling. Bought a couple pieces that were damaged, and cut them up to cover the walls below the windows, with the pink panther foam boards behind, both covering the original steel(aluminum?) panels above and below the chair rail, carefully cutting out notches for bolts where the front partitions and seat bolt to the chair rail. Took days.


I also cut some pieces of this paperboard to cover the front faces of my wire-rack shelf in places (held in place with magnets and a couple picture hanging hooks to keep them from sliding downwards in vibrations) - one up high, one low to the floor. I also glued some pieces to the underside of the plywood shelves above my bed (hung from the ceiling).


Then it started raining. And raining. And raining. And raining. I think it hasn't rained maybe 4 days in the last month.


All the paperboard panels in the lower half of the bus turned moldy green. Cardboard boxes did not. Plywood did not. Nothing else did.


I heard that "they" traced black mold problems with drywall panels back to the manufacturer. In other words, the mold spores are deep inside the walls, not on the surface. I feel like these paperboard panels are the same.


I pulled them all out, and dropped them off back at HD. I'm sure they were not going to give me my $$$ back, after cutting them all up. So I left them, covered in mold, in front of the entrance door, so customers would know to avoid them.


I missed a few pieces. And then also the upper piece on the wire shelf got it. The two I missed were so moldy they had a white haze covering them. A cloud of dust kicked up when I threw them on the ground. You can't see that in the pics, just the green stuff.

So far the panels above my bed are clean and clear....



So back to the drawing board on wall panels. Fiberglass?

[mrpincher]

Freaky. I'll bet that mold is related to the film the image is printed on. Did the panels mold on the backs?

[Mountain Gnome]

The backs were up against the wall, so no.

[Mountain Gnome]

Now the back of one of the one's that were up high is molding. And one piece that I took out a week ago and got rained on turned black on the backside. Looks like it is black all throughout the material.


Note the lattice boards that have been there on the ground in the rain for 20 years are not moldy and black.

[Mountain Gnome]

Now the undersides of the shelves are molding. Hard to see with the lighting in there. The white mold is everywhere. The green mold caught my attention visually, but it doesn't show in the pics very well.


Now I have to buy and cut new plywood also, since the paperboard is glued on with Gorilla Wood Glue. I used that to glue the magnets to the back of one piece of the paperboard crap, and I can't get it off the magnets that I tore off the back of the panel when I trashed it. Good stuff.


The worst part is I let that plywood age for a year so the smell of formaldehyde is gone. I noticed Lowes' wood smells a lot better than HD's wood.