Chinese Drywall Implicated in Sick-Building
Syndrome
Drywall imported from China may be corroding copper pipes and
electrical wiring in dozens of Florida homes and giving their
inhabitants chronic respiratory problems, say state officials.
The problem first surfaced last summer, when public health
workers in Sarasota County began looking into complaints of
foul odors and failing air conditioners in a handful of houses
built between 2004 and 2006. The initial inquiry quickly
focused on the homes’ drywall, which appeared to be
emitting sulfur-based gases that interacted with the copper in
air-conditioner evaporator coils.
Most drywall used in the U.S. is domestically produced. But
during the construction boom that followed Hurricanes Wilma and
Katrina, when drywall prices spiked and supplies were scarce,
suppliers began turning to sources in China and Mexico to meet
demand. In 2006 and 2007, demand for gypsum board in the U.S.
peaked at 65.7 billion square feet, with as much as 300 million
square feet imported from China, says the Gypsum Association, a
trade group representing North American gypsum board
manufacturers. About 20 percent of that imported drywall was
produced by Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Co. (KPT), a Chinese
subsidiary of the German company Knauf International. Most of
KPT’s drywall was shipped to Miami, with additional
amounts sent to New Orleans and Tampa.
The focus narrows. Now KPT finds
itself at the center of the Florida case — the target
of a number of state and private investigators and a major
defendant in a recent class-action lawsuit brought by owners of
affected homes. The company claims it’s been singled
out only because its drywall — unlike that of other
Chinese manufacturers — is easily identifiable. (KPT
is one of the few Chinese companies to brand its products). And
though the company acknowledges that it began receiving
complaints in 2006 about a sulfur smell in drywall shipped to
South Florida, it says it responded quickly by switching mines
and installing a gas monitoring system.
A toxicologist hired by the company, Philip Goad, found low
levels of carbon disulfide and carbonyl sulfide in air samples
taken from several of the affected homes. But Goad says the
chemical concentrations were well below federal and state
health guidelines and “hundreds of times”
lower than levels shown to cause harm in experimental studies.
He suggested in his report that iron disulfide — a
naturally occurring mineral discovered in a laboratory analysis
of drywall from KPT and at least one other Chinese manufacturer
— may be the source of the sulfur-containing
compounds.
Charges of dirty manufacturing.
Plaintiffs in the class-action suit — filed in January
in U.S. District Court in Fort Myers — offer a
different explanation. They allege that KPT used fly ash, a
waste material from scrubbers on coal-fired power plants, in
its drywall manufacturing process. According to the suit, fly
ash can combine with moisture to form sulfuric acid potent
enough to corrode copper tubing and electrical wiring. As of
press date, KPT hadn’t responded to those allegations,
but says that it is continuing its own investigation.
Assessing the damage. At least 80 of
the affected homes in Florida were constructed by Lennar Homes,
which has also filed suit — against not only KPT but
also Taishan Gypsum, China’s largest gypsum-board
manufacturer, and several Florida drywall suppliers and
installers. The Miami-based builder also continues to conduct
air sampling in homes and developments suspected of containing
the defective drywall; in some cases the company has assumed
the cost of relocating homeowners while it replaces the drywall
and affected plumbing, wiring, and air-conditioning
units.
Even as Lennar and other builders attempt to repair the damage
and struggle with questions of liability, state and federal
health officials — as well as environmental
consultants hired by Lennar, KPT, and other interested parties
— are trying to determine just how much of a health
risk the gases pose. Many homeowners have complained of sore
throats, headaches, and nosebleeds. The Florida Department of
Health — whose investigation is ongoing — has
not commented on the findings of either Lennar or KPT, both of
whom contend that the drywall poses no health risk at
all.
Tip of the iceberg? Just how
widespread the problem is remains unclear. So far, documented
cases are confined to South Florida and a few builders, but
some investigators have warned that hundreds of homes built by
a dozen or more builders may contain the defective drywall. If
allegations in the class action lawsuit are correct, as many as
2,000 South Florida homes could be affected, and the problem
could be spreading beyond the state’s boundaries. The
EPA is looking into reports of similar problems in Virginia
Beach, Va. And America’s Watchdog, a consumer advocacy
group, reports that defective Chinese drywall has been found in
12 other states, including Texas, Louisiana, and Arizona.
— Andrew Wormer
• A West Virginia
builder is being sued by more than 100 current and former
homeowners for installing nonfunctional radon-removal systems.
Suits filed against Richmond American Homes of West Virginia
claim that the company put in fake systems or intentionally
installed systems incorrectly. In some cases, toilet drains
were mislabeled as radon vents; in others, the PVC vent system
was installed after the basement slab was poured, making the
system inoperable. The homes were built in a high-radon area
where radon-removal systems are required by code.
• Construction workers performing dangerous jobs like
inspecting high-rises or underwater bridge piers may soon be
replaced by robots. Students at Virginia Tech have designed a
trio of serpentine 3-foot-long robots that can wrap themselves
around a pole or beam in a helical shape, then roll up or down
by twisting their bodies. Faculty advisor Dennis Hong calls the
prize-winning robots “really wicked cool” and
predicts that they will serve as a practical inspection tool
for construction sites.
• The Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued
notice that two electrical how-to books produced by Taunton
Press have been voluntarily recalled because of faulty wiring
instructions. Wiring a House (third edition) and
Wiring Complete: Expert Advice From Start to Finish,
both published last year, contain several errors in their
technical diagrams that could lead to incorrect installations
or repairs of electrical wiring, says the CPSC. Owners of the
book are advised to return them to wherever they were purchased
for a refund.
• The buzzword in building circles may be green, but a
recent report by the Council for Environmental Cooperation
found that only 0.3 percent of new residential construction and
2 percent of nonresidential construction actually meet current
U.S. Green Building Council standards. This is far short of the
25 percent goal that the organization set for its LEED
certification program for 2007.
• “Storm-chasers” looking to make a
quick buck off desperate homeowners after a weather disaster
should heed the example of Clay West of Lumberton, Texas.
Earlier this year West was fined $30,000 and ordered to stop
working after the state’s Residential Construction
Commission received complaints that he failed to properly
register as a builder and wouldn’t respond to
complaints about substandard work. West isn’t alone:
Since Hurricane Ike hit the Gulf Coast last September, the
commission has filed 248 similar notices of violation against
storm-chasers.
• San Francisco construction workers are disguising
their familiar bright-blue portable toilets in an attempt to
foil arsonists who have set at least 20 of the outhouses on
fire since last November. The attacks have caused an estimated
$50,000 in property damage, say city fire officials.
• Topping Lake Superior State University’s
34th annual list of words to be banished from the
Queen’s English is “green.” Along
with “carbon footprint,” green and all of its
variables — going green, building green, greening, and
so forth — beat out such contenders as
“maverick,” “bailout,” and
“Wall Street/Main Street” for most egregious
misuse, overuse, and general overall uselessness.