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punamytsike

China hits again - drywall

punamytsike
15 years ago

Things are getting more and more complicated when you are buying a house. Now if you are buying a house that is built after 2004 you might have to check out your drywall and make sure that your new house does not have poisonous one from China :-/

There might be silver lining for the sellers tho, if many of those houses end up not salvageable, then they will be bulldozed, meaning there are less houses for sale, less competition. That might be in the long run good news for builders as well, all those bulldozed houses need to be rebuilt, hence more construction work. But I am afraid for China it means, I do not know what anyone dears to buy from there anymore...

Here is a link that might be useful: Chinese drywall problem

Comments (9)

  • sierraeast
    15 years ago

    Thanks to President Clinton on his "historic" trip to China when in reality he brought along over fifty company reps to outsource manufacturing to China, lessening employment here in the U.S. The other "poison" from China is the loss of those jobs to Americans. This is Chinas way of saying thanks? When are we gonna get it?

  • dabunch
    15 years ago

    OMG, we moved into our newly built home in February of 2007. I hope it's not the case. I will check with my builder!

    One of my dogs and I were really sick for the first year. I used air purifier and had the dog sit in front of it, because I was suspecting that it was from new construction. I went into every corner and vacuumed all the sawdust because I was suspecting IT making us sick. However, we weren't much better. I thought I didn't feel well because I'm getting older...I've had other homes built, but never felt sick UNTIL this one.
    I had to put the dog down this past November because of being old, BUT her 2 issues were a bad back and UNCONTROLLABLE allergies. I thought her allergies got worse because of her age, which may be true, but now I wonder.
    In fact, I still get up with watery eyes, stuffy nose ...

  • steve_o
    15 years ago

    New construction almost always comes with a host of chemicals off-gassing, sometimes for months -- drywall, paint, plasticizers, construction adhesives, protective films, flooring, electrical cable insulation, etc., in addition to the new furniture/bedding/etc. people bring into a new home. Not to defend Chinese drywall unduly, but there are so many chemicals present in construction that it would be hard to point the finger accurately at the drywall at this point.

  • punamytsike
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    Steve, obviously Lennar knows that this is the dry wall. What ever they found after testing the dry wall and are not disclosing, must have been bad enough for them to move families out, cover that cost, their current living expenses and also remediation on the houses. As you might know, it is very hard to get large companies to pay up before law suites and court orders. This time it is happening, makes you wonder...

  • sweet_tea
    15 years ago

    Apparently it is only homes built with Chinese drywall that was shipped to the US between 2004 and 2007. There were 2 or 3 shipments to the port in Tampa FL that are known. I don't know about other parts of the USA that might have gotten this Chinese drywall. The several news stories I read are in the Tampa area and SW FL.

    The houses, they say, smell either of sulfer or metallic. Also, the AC coils are corroded to the point of needing replacement. Also the electrical wiring is corroding, turning black. Some folks that lived in the homes go so sick they moved out before, clueless as to what the issue was.

    The FL health department is also involved after they found out different folks/properties seemed to have similar issues with this and they are coordinating evaluation/testing as well as some builders doing it independantly.

    It sounds like most homes that were built during this period did NOT have the Chinese drywall, but some did. That is the tough part...finding out those that did. It seems that all those with the bad drywall have the odor and corrosion issues.

    From what I read, this is beyond allergies...it is a real issue. Seems resolution is to remove all the bad drywall, replace the corroded electrical wiring/ac coils. Not sure what they do about furniture, carpeting, drapes, clothing that has already soaked up the vapors.

    Investigation is ongoing.

  • sweet_tea
    15 years ago

    Here is a quote from a news article. (and the link)

    '....At least some drywall imported from China during the homebuilding boom years of 2004 and 2005 was made with waste materials from scrubbers on coal-fired power plants.

    Those materials leak into the air as gases and combine with the moisture on an air conditioning coil to create sulfuric acid, which appears to be dissolving solder joints and copper tubing  creating leaks, blackening the coils and even causing the system to fail...'

    Here is a link that might be useful: Drywall article

  • muddypond
    15 years ago

    Here is a quote from a news article. (and the link)

    '....At least some drywall imported from China during the homebuilding boom years of 2004 and 2005 was made with waste materials from scrubbers on coal-fired power plants.

    The Fort Myers News Press is not my favorite newspaper. That article quotes one local individual on the scrubber bit, but it gives absolutely no information on how he arrived at that conclusion or his qualifications to do.

    As far as I am concerned, the scrubber part is strictly rumor.

  • jasonmi7
    15 years ago

    "As far as I am concerned, the scrubber part is strictly rumor. "

    I have no idea who the newspaper or author is, but I can assure you that fly-ash is, and has been a big component of drywall for over a decade. It's a huge, great achievement of environmentalism developed by USG. Just about all regular drywall has fly-ash as a filler material, rather than 100% gypsum.

  • muddypond
    15 years ago

    Unless I don't understand the process, synthetic gypsum comes from certain types of wet scrubbers, and it is safe. It sounds more like the Chinese drywall may have been made from unscrubbed fly ash, which is pretty nasty stuff, if any part of it at all came from power plant waste. A lot of Chinese power plants don't have any scrubbers, which is why I questioned the unsubstantiated source for that story.