Chinese Drywall Pondering

[Jeff Goddard]

Ok, I am puzzled about the Chinese Drywall problem, issue or hazard....I just discovered the subject as the topic of several posts....  

I had not heard of Chinese Drywall until today so far as I can remember.  The really interesting thing to me is in my experience as a building inspector for two decades and a drywall installer and all around construction type for many years prior to that I never encountered the subject....  I also became a state approved asbestos consultant a couple of years ago...  

I was pretty sure I did not know many things but this is something I didn't know I didn't know....  Well it's never too late to acquire knowledge so if any of my fellow BP members can enlighten me I would be grateful....  From what I have read the wiring and AC systems are thought to be impacted by the dreaded Chinese Drywall issue....  Thank any in advance for enlightening me...

[Adam Bartomeo]

Jeff,

Cape Coral, fl is known to be the defective drywall capital of the country. I have done a lot of research on it because doing business here can be unpredictable unless you can spot good or bad drywall. It is obvious to me that most of the posts on this thread have come from third party conversations or poor websites. 

I encourage you to do the research yourself but from the what I remember reading, HUD says the only thing that needs to be changed is the drywall and the smoke detectors. I beleive the study came out in 2010. According to HUD they did not find any health risk outside of some head aches, throat irritation and the like.

The best way to do a preliminary check is to pull  out an outlet and look at the ground wire.  If it is coded in a black substance then there is a good possibility you have Chinese drywall. I have been in many homes where some of the other signs ( smell of rotting eggs, corrosive bath fixtures, corrosive AC )  do not exist. My experience is that every time that I have found the ground wire to be corroded that the house has Chinese drywall.  Going in the attic and looking at the ceiling drywall is one of the worst things you can do. Most ceilings and garages do not use the same drywall as it used for Walls.  Therefore, you can get a false negative by looking at the ceiling drywall or the garage drywall. 

 You will find a lot of false information on the Internet because a lot of companies that do drywall remediation you scare tactics so they can charge very high prices.  I have gotten prices of $100,000 to remediate a $200,000 home.  After doing the research I only really needed to spend about $20,000 .

 I avoid Chinese drywall homes because it has a stigma attached to it even if the property was remediated. 

 Feel free to give me a call or shoot me a PM if you have any questions .