Drywall from China

[Perry Underwood]

The latest concern about material from China is drywall. Anyone who used drywall in 2005 or 2006 may want to pay close attention.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/05/19/florida.drywall.remedies/index.html

There's also a video on CNN's website, but I don't seem to be able to provide a direct link to that but check here:

http://edition.cnn.com/video/

[Larry Edgerton]

What an ingenious way to get rid of your toxic waste! :)

[Robert Parrish]

I live next door to subdivision that was built with Chinese drywall. Some of the builders are taking responsibility and are trying to make repairs but it is difficult for the owners. One of the problems with the drywall is that it corrodes the air conditioner pipes and copper plumbing. Suing a German company that makes drywall in China is proving to be difficult!

[Rick Fisher]

The German company which allegedly owns the factory is Knauff.. they are huge. They operate every division as a seperate legal company and are the largest shareholder.

I sell drywall in large quantities. I remember it being offered, much of it came through Vancouver.. I didnt buy any but was tempted. It was cheap.

I still remember the broker calling me. I know the guy .. he isnt saying much about it now.

[Robert Parrish]

Rick, I believe this drywall came through the port of Manatee and Miami. Someone abandon thousand of sheets on the docks of Miami and just walked away.

[Byron Trantham]

What an ingenious way to get rid of your toxic waste! :)

And enemies!:mad:

[Dick Strauss]

I've heard folks claiming the Chinese drywall was $3-4 while the US stuff was $22 a sheet due to shortages in 2006-2007. Florida has a real problem with this imported drywall. Not only does it harm anything copper (wires, plumbing, AC coils), it is also causing corrosion of the hurricane straps that tie the roof to the walls etc as mandated by Florida code. Talk about an expensive mistake...and homeowners insurance won't pay since it is a building defect.

Why don't we have basic qualifications/inspections for building materials whether it be plywood, chipboard, copper pipe, PEX (especially those materials that are imported)? I can understand getting a bad batch of product but not that was installed in possibly 100,000 homes.

[Rick Fisher]

I heard Fla. got hit real hard with it..

[Tom Godley]

It may come as a shock to many -- but so much of our economy just runs on trust.

You learn very quickly when you start to work in other countries that the old USA is a much more honest place than we think.

We take for granted that you can order a 3k laptop over the phone and it will be delivered often the next day in a package that advertises what is inside! Ditto registered mail at the Post Office. This is not the case in much of the world.

The incidence of fake and mislabeled products is so widespread that it is viewed as commonplace -- it becomes insidious. It is a strange to be sold something that the seller knows is not what was ordered and then to have that seller become upset when you hold them accountable when that product is deficient.

The cost to verify is very expensive and often the end user has no way of doing it!

[Robert Parrish]

Yes we did! I'm not sure that they could have detected the problem with a test. It didn't show up until the drywall was installed in a confined space. It sure hasn't helped the real estate values in my neighbor. There is a subdivision about a mile from me where almost every home has the stuff.

[Dan Mages]

I sure hope this stuffwas not sold through Home Depot or Menards. I bought a ton of drywall to finish the basement in our house in IL.

Dan

[David Keller NC]

Dan - Drywall sourced from China was sold in a lot of the big-box stores, but it varies by location. Some parts of the country did not see a huge building boom like Florida or Nevada, and the probability of getting some is lower in those areas. If you still have a sheet or fragments of a sheet, you can determine the origin on the back.

BTW - this same thing is happening with plywood and OSB, though the problem there is with old-formulation glues that off gas formaldehyde in concentrations considerably over the US standard. Generally speaking, I won't touch plywood or OSB (or any other engineered material) from HD or Lowes, no matter how inexpensive. Once all of the labor is factored into a project, it doesn't make sense to take a chance.

[Dick Strauss]

David is right...I've got a couple of partial sheets of OSB that I got from a friend. The pieces total about 10-15 sq ft but have stunk up the whole 2 car garage from the formaldehyde outgassing. This is probably the same glue recipe that caused all of the issues with the Katrina trailers.

[Russ Filtz]

I try to avoid ALL products from China (yes it is HARD!). I lived in Hong Kong for 3-yrs and know all to well their bait-switch, untrustworthy tactics. It's a matter of course doing business over there. They do the same thing to locals, but with foreigners it's even more of a free-for-all!

Kids get no toys made in China when possible. Absolutely nothing that gets ingested, put on the skin, or could be sucked on by a child. Too many of their toxic waste disaster stories to believe them anymore.

Here's an idea. Sue the pants off them so it wipes out most of the current debt the US owes them!

[Mat Ashton]

I try to avoid ALL products from China (yes it is HARD!). I lived in Hong Kong for 3-yrs and know all to well their bait-switch, untrustworthy tactics. It's a matter of course doing business over there. They do the same thing to locals, but with foreigners it's even more of a free-for-all!

Kids get no toys made in China when possible. Absolutely nothing that gets ingested, put on the skin, or could be sucked on by a child. Too many of their toxic waste disaster stories to believe them anymore.

Here's an idea. Sue the pants off them so it wipes out most of the current debt the US owes them!

Reminds me of a good story over here in aus. Aus is a dumping ground for the worst of the chinese imports. I've bought plenty of hardware from china when I lived in canada and for the most part it wasn't bad but the crap peddled in aus isn't worth it even if it were free.

I have friends here that got a "great" deal on toothpaste at a local discount warehouse, so they bought heaps of it. They thought it was so cheap because all the lettering was in chinese and must have been a shipping mistake so it was being discounted... They said I should get down there before it's all gone as it was getting snatched up fast. I said no thanx, I'm a little suspect as to why china was off loading this stuff in aus. She thought I was being paranoid. Few weeks later the reason came out. It was all recalled because the chinese had found antifreeze makes for a great filler ingredient. Sorta like putting melamine in milk products... makes for great colour and consistency but has an annoying side effect of killing the kids who eat it. I never did go back and fill them in on why it was so cheap and I'm not sure they ever knew either. I only found out because I had an advertising assignment at uni that was on toothpaste.

My wife brought home some chinese dish washing soap a while back. Same thing again - all in chinese lettering. When I noticed it I threw it in the garbage and told her to not shop at the chinese import stores (discount warehouses) for anything that in anyway could be absorbed into our bodies either through mouth, nose or skin.

[Dan Mages]

I try to avoid ALL products from China (yes it is HARD!). I lived in Hong Kong for 3-yrs and know all to well their bait-switch, untrustworthy tactics. It's a matter of course doing business over there. They do the same thing to locals, but with foreigners it's even more of a free-for-all!

Kids get no toys made in China when possible. Absolutely nothing that gets ingested, put on the skin, or could be sucked on by a child. Too many of their toxic waste disaster stories to believe them anymore.

Here's an idea. Sue the pants off them so it wipes out most of the current debt the US owes them!

Ditto on this one. I especially avoid food from China. Trader Joes has banned all food coming from China out of concern for customer safety.

I don't want to get into politics, but I do believe that China's problems with corruption, fraud, and terrible polution will cause the country to collapse upon itself in our lifetime, and it will be a mess that will be felt worldwide.

Dan

[Eric Larsen]

The latest concern about material from China is drywall. Anyone who used drywall in 2005 or 2006 may want to pay close attention.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/05/19/florida.drywall.remedies/index.html

There's also a video on CNN's website, but I don't seem to be able to provide a direct link to that but check here:

http://edition.cnn.com/video/


Ugh. What a nightmare. My house was built during that timeframe, but so far no fumes.

Cracks in the ceiling? Yes. Fumes? No.

How much lead, melamine, sulfur, strontium and arsenic are we going to have to collectively breathe/consume before we finally do something about this problem?

[David Keller NC]

"How much lead, melamine, sulfur, strontium and arsenic are we going to have to collectively breathe/consume before we finally do something about this problem?"

Won't happen. Remember that what's driving this is the desire for companies to make the maximum amount possible, and consumer's desire to get stuff as cheaply as possible. This is sometimes called "greed", and it's a very powerful motivator.

[Joel Goodman]

And as consumers our collective desire to have as much "stuff" as possible. After all if we wanted less "stuff" we wouldn't mind paying a few dollars more for each item.

[Carlos Alden]

Is there a way to test the drywall to determine if it's okay?

About 4-5 years ago I drywalled up the closet in my son's room. I'm sure I got it at Lowe's or HD. It never smelled bad or off or anything, and it's kinda late to be checking now, but I thought I'd see if there's something to check for if I can rip off a small piece of it. I know for sure I don't have any scraps left over.

Carlos