Chinese drywall worse than you can imagine

"... foul odors seeping from walls. Hundreds of homeowners, most in Florida, have reported corrosion to their air conditioners, mirrors, electrical outlets and even jewelry."

We knew, or suspected most of that. But check this:

"Some Chinese experts, however, suspect that the culprit is a RADIOACTIVE phosphorus substance - phosphogypsum - that is banned for construction use in the U.S. but has been used by Chinese manufacturers for almost a decade."

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Fortunately, much of this Chinese drywall was used during the housing boom to accommodate zero-down-payment, sub-prime mortgage holders.

Reply to
HeyBub
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Fortunately? If they're making their payments on time I think they have a right to expect reasonably safe, code-compliant housing. Likely shoddily-built, knocked together cookie cutter houses, but code-compliant nonetheless.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

The chinese should pay us, to remedy this mess. This crap has ruined homes and lives of those that cant afford another loss. We shouldnt have to pay to fix this chinese poison

Reply to
ransley

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Hi, Who in the right mind would use building material from China. Chinese is famous for lack of quality and safety concern. Up here one outfit tried to introduce ceramic roof tiles from China. No one was interested regardless of price. I thought they are good at least making roof tiles.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

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Hmmm, I guess you are mortgage free? You sound funny.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

Hi, I'd rather blame and make them accountable who used this product without due process(testing and such) Did government approve this product? Did it meet health concern and building code for Florida? Obviously some one screwed up BIG allowing this dry wall stuff.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

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Some of the first properties that had this problem was in Lakewood Ranch Fla.

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This is definitely not subprime housing and the intent was not necessarily to build on the cheap. The Chinese crap was used because of a shortage of drywall caused by the high demand during the housing boom. While this boom was fueled by the demand for housing for the subprime market, The subprime market was not the place that got all the toxic drywall.

It would be helpful if posters did not presume they knew what they were talking about. This whole mess has been published in the local newspaper that services both Lakewood Ranch as well as my community which is lower in scale but was built out before the advent of the crappy drywall.

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie

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I was just wondering if these are the "toxic assets" that are being referred to in the banking bailout? *snicker*

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

This topic is a good example of scare-mongering and mass-hysteria, without scientific evidence. I googled for "chinese drywall quality tests".

There are no government tests that show any detrimental effect of Chinese drywall. There was one test performed by the Florida State Government in April:

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There were not tests performed by the nih (National Institute of Health).

You find mostly ambulance chasers (attorneys), though, who are trying to create another victimless class-action suit.

Why are people so gullible? The only hard drives you can buy are built in China, not in the US.

Reply to
Walter R.

Yep. Especially when you read the article and discover that:

So far, tests in the U.S. of Chinese-made drywall used in American homes have not turned up evidence of phosphogypsum. In Florida, four samples taken from troubled houses showed no indication of radium, said Lori Streit, a scientist at Unified Engineering Inc., which conducted the analysis.

Reply to
Robert Neville

I think that the problem was that US wallboard production was maxed out due to a bad hurricane happening in the middle of a construction boom. I ASSume that contractors would have used domestic wallboard had it been available, but there was a severe shortage. Kind of like how plywood triples in price during a hurricane, but worse...

I agree, I would wait until a quality product was available, but often insurance cos. (or even owners) insist on speedy completion, so whaddayagonnado? Some people don't like living in homes with exposed studs, doesn't bother me much, but given my druthers I wouldn't do it.

nate

Reply to
N8N

It cant be any worse than Homosote board, I bought some of that to sound insulate a furnace room (it looked dense, heavy and quiet). It smelled like wet newspapers in sewer water, I had to rip it out a few hours after I installed it. Apparently it's actually made out of paper fiber processed through recycled water, they must have used ransid water with my batch.

Reply to
windcrest

What I find amazing is that it is cost effective to ship a product like dry wall or roof tiles halfway around the world. Low labor content, no real difference in materials cost, and very heavy and bulky. -- Doug

Reply to
Douglas Johnson

When the "materials" are hazardous waste they would otherwise have to pay to remove, it is quite an advantage. You also can not underestimate the labor cost difference. The boat ride is really pretty cheap.

BTW there is now a story in SW Florida about some USG "sulfur" drywall, made from American fly ash.

Reply to
gfretwell

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