Is plywood better than particleboard construction in cabinetry?
Many of us have seen the deleterious effects of water on raw particleboard. I once bought a house in which particleboard had been used as a substrate for the bathroom floor (underneath peel-and-stick vinyl tiles), and marveled at the 5/8″ thick material which in some parts of the room had become 11/4″ thick, spongelike, and other sections of the floor that were decomposing to a gritty mess. The whole floor came up, was replaced with proper subfloor, and then tiled. But underlayment particleboard, a low-density material, is not the board used in cabinetmaking. The particleboard use by cabinetmakers is rated “45 lb commercial grade,” which is a far denser and smoother material ideal for laminating. The particleboard is also sealed with either a solid color laminate or laminated wood grain surface to protect the material from moisture. Particleboard is dimensionally stable: it will not warp, nor expand and contract in response to moisture in the air. Many designers, remodelers, and consum
