The New Hazard … Chinese Sheetrock…

October 5th, 2009 by admin

But how did the sulfur get in the sheetrock? Gypsum, the primary raw material for manufacturing sheetrock, is mined from the ground. It can naturally contain sulfur. It is logical to expect the level of sulfur would vary depending on the region where it is mined. However a waste byproduct from coal fired power plants called fly ash is used by some sheetrock manufacturers in the process.

This practice is not just limited to Chinese manufacturers. Fly ash usually contains sulfur especially when from a lignite coal plant. The sulfur content alone is not the problem. For a chemical reaction to occur and emit the suspect gas or gases, moisture and heat are needed. Therefore humid or wet conditions are needed. Warm moist conditions are prevalent along the coast

Determining if your home is impacted:

Does your home smell like rotten eggs or ammonia (sometimes a sweetish smell)? Is it more noticeable

when entering your home and then seems to dissipate? The level of odor varies greatly in each home as

does each person’s ability to detect the odor. Of course, the strength of the odor also depends on how much drywall was used in the home. Significantly, some homeowners report no smell, but their home clearly has Chinese drywall. In short, do not rely on your nose alone, particularly since many develop olfactory fatigue after being exposed to Chinese drywall.

Chinese drywall corrodes electrical wiring. Check the electrical receptacles in your walls to see if the wires are blackened. Pull off the electrical plate and look inside. Obviously, do not touch anything – you could get shocked. There should be a copper wire inside. If the exposed portion of the copper wire is blackening, this is a positive indicator for the presence of Chinese sheetrock. The breaker panel should also be checked.

There are chemical test that can be performed by trained and certified experts in the field to determine definitively the presence of Chinese Sheetrock.

Recourse:

Regrettably, there is no effective recourse other than legal action available to homeowners at the present. In the opening of this article, I made mention of the letter in the mail … That is a letter from a law firm or associated organization asking you to join in a Chinese Sheetrock class action law suit. The major benefactors of this action will be the lawyers. Homeowner payments are unlikely to see much more than a small fraction of the cost to them for remediation (once a remediation method has been decided upon and approved) or a small fraction their financial losses.

There is some isolated talk about possible government relief. But that is still very embryonic at this point. Bringing these issues to the attention of congress may be the most effective recourse for homeowners.

On a go forward basis, purchasers should take extra precautions to assure themselves that their new home does not have a Chinese sheetrock issue. This is best accomplished through professional home inspection and drywall testing.